George Washington Flowers 
Memorial Collection 


DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 


ESTABLISHED BY THE 
FAMILY OF 


COLONEL FLOWERS 


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aN 
ie 
https://archive.org/details/atourowndoort 


‘At Our Own Door 


A Study of Home Mis- 
sions with Special Reference 
to the South and West 


By : 
S. L. MORRIS, D.D. } 


Secretary of the General Assembly's Home Missions Presby- 
terian Church in the U. 8. 


“And that repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in His Name among all Na- 
tions, BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM.” —Luke 24 - 47. 


ad 


“And ye shall be witnesses unto me both in 
Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and 
unto the uttermost part of the earth.”—Acis 7- 8. 


SECOND EDITION 


New YORK CHICAGO TORONTO 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


LONDON AND EDINBURGH 


Copyright, 1904, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 
(March) 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 63 Washington Street 
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 30 St. Mary Street 


To the Memory of my 
Sainted Father 
who laid down his life at the call of his country, 
whose example has been my constant inspiration in life, 
and to my 
Aged Mother 
who early impressed me for Christ and the Church, 
and who still lingers as a benign benediction in my home 
this volume is most affectionately 
Dedicated. 


Preface 


“Ou! that mine adversary had written a book.” 
The Secretary of home missions recognizes the risk 
of authorship; but necessity compels the venture. 
The Southern Presbyterian Church in less than a 
decade will celebrate its Semi-Centennial; and yet 
whilst it has been engaged largely in home mis- 
sionary efforts, it has never produced a book on 
home missions. The demands for literature on 
this subject are numerous, widespread and urgent. 
The Chattanooga Conference of Young People on 
Missions, held on Lookout Mountain, July 1-8, 
1903, challenged the Secretary to prepare such a 
manual of home missions, as would provide the 
young people of the church a text-book for sys- 
tematic study of this great department of Chris- 
tian work. The succeeding volume is the answer 
to that challenge. The author indulges the hope 
that it will furnish an array of facts, which will 
not only instruct the young people, but stimu- 
late their organizations, ladies’ societies, Christian 
workers, churches, and ministers of the Gospel to 
greater usefulness in the Master’s vineyard. 

The writer places on record his indebtedness to 
the following books and pamphlets: “The His- 
tory of the Southern Presbyterian Church,” by 
Rey. Prof. T. C. Johnson, D. D.; “ Presbyterian 

5 


6 Preface 


Home Missions,” by Rev. Sherman H. Doyle, 
D.D.; “Under Our Flag,” by Miss Alice Guernsey ; 
“Leavening the Nation,” by Rev. Jos. B. Clark, 
D.D.; “The Minute Man on the Frontier,” by 
Rev. W. C. Puddefoot ; “Our Country ” and “ The 
Twentieth Century City,” by Rev. Josiah Strong, 
D.D.; “Our Forty Years in the Home Field,” by 
Rev. P. H. Gwinn; “A Brief History of the Gen- 
eral Assembly’s Home Missions,” by Rev. J. N. 
Craig, D.D.; “Review and Outlook,” by Rev. 
Charles L. Thompson, D. D., Secretary ; the relig- 
ious papers of the church, and especially the Union 
Seminary Magazine and the Home Mission num- 
ber of the Christian Observer. Quotations from 
these are acknowledged in each instance at the 
proper place; and the list of books is given above 
for the information of those who desire further 
study of the subject. 

Written amid the pressure of office duties, inter- 
rupted by absences in attending church courts 
and other engagements, marred by many vexatious 
causes, known only to those similarly situated, no 
one can be more conscious of its defects than the 
author himself; yet he offers it as an humble 
tribute of service to the church which holds his 
loyalty, and to the Master he delights to serve, 
with the prayer that it may fill some useful sphere 
in advancing the Kingdom of God on earth. 


S. L. MorRIs. 
Atlanta, Georgia. 


Contents 


Hisrorica - - - 
THE ProGRraM oF Missions. - 
Ciry Missions’ - - - 
Moun TalInEERS - - - 
Tue Wuire Man’s BurpDEN - 
Tue Mexicans 1n Texas - 
Inpians AND THEIR TERRITORY 
Tue Great WEsT - - 
Tue Prositem or Missions—Foes 
Woman’s Work—FRiENnDsS_~ - 
SynopicaL EvaNGELIZATION - 
ARGUMENT AND APPEAL - 


InDEx - - © © 


II 
48 
63 
go 
112 
130 
139 
163 
185 
201 
218 
239 
254 


At Our Own Door 


I 
HISTORICAL 


As the oak strikes its roots into the virgin soil, 
penetrating into the crevices of granite rock, forc- 
ing entrance into the hard clay, or expanding into 
the more inviting richer mold, drawing sustenance 
and strength from all sources; so the Presby- 
terian Church of the United States has drawn its 
life and strength from almost all the States of 
Europe. Puritans from England, Huguenots from 
France, Scotch-Irish from Ireland, Dutch from 
Holland, Scotch, Germans, Swedes, Swiss, etc., 
mingle their blood and religious life to form on 
this Western Continent the staunchest and sturdi- 
est, the purest and most aggressive Presbyterian 
Church on earth. 

Persecution that scattered the infant church in 
the early days of Christianity, sending its mem- 
bership “everywhere preaching the word,” has on 
more than one occasion been a blessing in disguise, 
God’s method of propagating the faith. As the 
massacre of St. Bartholomew’s Day and the Revo- 
cation of the Edict of Nantes sent some of the 


best blood of France into exile, and the Nemesis 
aI 


12 At Our Own Door 


of history was avenged when their descendants 
returned as officers in the German army that con- 
quered and humiliated France; so the misguided 
Stuart dynasty forced the flower of England into 
the wilderness of America, where their sons founded 
the greatest of Republics, and dealt to England the 
severest blow in all her history. The Presbyterian 
Church of America was born of persecution; and 
men who were willing to suffer for conscience’ sake 
and satisfied to exile themselves amidst the wild 
forests and wilder savages for religious liberty are 
not bad material out of which to build an enduring 
church. 

The gigantic failure of Spain to establish a 
great Empire in America, as she entered by the 
Southern gate through the Gulf of Mexico, and 
the equally disastrous failure of France by the 
northern gate through the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
can be explained only by those who see the finger 
of God in history, preserving America for the 
Anglo-Saxon and Protestantism. Driven from the 
older countries of Europe by persecution, their set- 
tlement of a new Continent was not so much in 
the hope of commercial gain as the establishment 
of an asylum of religious liberty. 

“Perhaps no other nation in history, unless it 
were God’s chosen people, was ever more distinctly 
religious and missionary in the character of its 
early settlers. The official charter and commis- 
sions granted by foreign courts to these emigrants 
contain, almost without exception, an explicit rec- 
ognition of the divine claim. ‘The thing is of 


Historical 13 


God,’ said the London Trading Company in its 
letter patent to the Plymouth pilgrims. ‘In the 
name of God, Amen’ are the opening words of 
the Mayflower compact, and the full spirit and 
meaning of that document are summed up in 
phrase as follows: ‘For the glory of God and the 
advancement of the Christian faith.’ The signers 
of this immortal compact paused on the threshold 
of their great enterprise ‘at a time,’ says Bancroft, 
‘when everything demanded haste,’ and kept a 
Sabbath of prayer and praise on Clark’s Island. 

3 Nor was New England the only spot, 
settled by Christian emigrants ‘for the glory of 
God.’ The Dutch of New York were children of 
the Reformation, and however eager for trade, 
brought their religion with them, and it is claimed 
set up their first church in New Amsterdam a full 
year before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. 

: The early settlers of North and South 
Carolina declared themselves to be actuated by ‘a 
laudable zeal for the propagation of the gospel,’ 
while Georgia, the last of the colonies to be settled, 
was a philanthropic enterprise from the start, 
dominated by godly Moravians from Germany and 
Presbyterians from the Highlands of Scotland” 
(“ Leavening the Nation,” pp. 16, 17). 

The Puritans transplanted their Calvinistic faith 
and austere life to Plymouth Rock, Mass.; Eng- 
lish Presbyterians entered Virginia through James- 
town; the Dutch settled New York, Maryiand, 
and some as far south as Charleston, S. C.; and 
the exiled Huguenots found a home in South 


14 At Our Own Door 


Carolina. But the most important factor in the 
Presbyterianism of the United States was the com- 
ing of large colonies of Scotch-Irish, who entered 
chiefly at Philadelphia and Charleston. It is due 
to this fact that Pennsylvania and the Carolinas 
have been the strongholds of Presbyterianism re- 
spectively for the North and South. These two 
streams afterwards met and flowed together, 
those from Pennsylvania emigrating westward 
and southward through Virginia and North Caro- 
lina, meeting the South Carolina contingent, 
making the Atlantic slope from New York to 
South Carolina the nursery of Presbyterianism for 
the continent. 

From meagre historical data we learn that as early 
as 1700 A. D., there were congregations at Charles- 
ton and Wilton, S. C., on Elizabeth River in 
Virginia, near the present site of Norfolk, at 
Pocomoke and other communities in Maryland, at 
Philadelphia, in New Jersey and North Carolina, 
and perhaps at other places where the records are 
lost. 

Francis Makemie is venerated as the father of 
Presbyterianism in America. Licensed about 1681, 
he landed in Maryland in 1683. Having decided 
for Ashley River, 8. C., he vainly tried to reach his 
destination, but was compelled by a storm to re- 
turn to the neighborhood of Norfolk, Virginia, 
where he ministered to a company of English 
Puritans. About 1689, he settled to his life-work 
in Maryland. “As the Greek cities vie for the 
honor of Homer’s birth, so do the Eastern Shore 


Historical 15 


churches vie with one another in their claims upon 
Makemie as founder or minister.” The continuity 
of his ministry was broken by a visit to the Brit- 
ish Isles in 1691, and a ministry in the Barbadoes 
for several years. In 1704 he went abroad to 
secure ministers and returned with John Hampton 
of Ireland and George McNish of Scotland. It 
was largely through his instrumentality that the 
first presbytery in America was founded at 
Philadelphia about 1705, he being probably first 
moderator, and the other ministers being Hampton, 
McNish, Wilson, Davis, Taylor, and Andrews. 
In 1707 he visited New York, and being refused 
permission to speak in a church, he preached in a 
private house ; and for this offense was imprisoned 
by the governor, Lord Cornbury, for six weeks. 
Being an inconvenient prisoner to hold, he was 
soon set at liberty, and died the next year at Po- 
comoke, Maryland, only fifty years of age. 

This gives an account of the organization of the 
Church in the United States; but there were 
others too widely scattered to enter the organiza- 
tion. Rev. John Cotton and Archibald Stobo, 
near Charleston, several in North Carolina, New 
Jersey and New York, might be enumerated 
among the beginnings of Presbyterianism. These 
scattered pastors and flocks, together with the 
growth of the work, justified the organization of 
the Synod of Philadelphia in 1716, and the com- 
pletion of the organization of the Church ina 
General Assembly in 1789, the same year the 
Constitution of the United States was adopted. 


16 At Our Own Door 


At this time the country had a population of five 
millions, and the Presbyterian strength was 288 
ministers and licentiates, 419 churches (one-half 
being vacant), and about twenty thousand com- 
municants. Such was the humble beginning of 
Presbyterianism on this Continent. It was as 
“an handful of corn in the earth upon the top 
of the mountains,” but its fruit “as the shaking of 
Lebanon,” bearing thirty, sixty, and a hundred- 
fold, now facing the twentieth century with a 
phalanx of twelve Presbyterian denominations in 
the United States, aggregating twelve thousand 
ministers, fifteen thousand churches, and nearly 
two millions of communicants. 

It is interesting and instructive to know that the 
first recorded grant of missionary money in this 
country was made to the First Presbyterian 
Church of New York in 1719, “to enable it to 
support the gospel.” Did the Church ever make 
in this world a better investment from a financial 
standpoint? Does any outlay of funds ever pay 
better than home missions ? 

Burdened with their growing spiritual wants, 
the presbytery, and afterwards the synod, sent 
frequent and urgent “supplications ” to the Synods 
of Scotland and Ireland and to the evangelical 
ministers of London and Dublin for ministers and 
money to aid in their maintenance. Right nobly 
did the Mother Church respond to this Macedonian 
cry from the wilderness of America. So the 
Presbyterian Church of the United States is the 
child of home missions, now grown stronger than 


Historical 17 


the parent, upon whose shoulders has fallen asa 
mantle the spirit of home missions. 

Ours has been a home mission Church from the 
beginning. Before there was any organized 
presbytery, its ministers were missionaries among 
the Indian tribes, and were gathering the scattered 
settlers and more recent emigrants into folds and 
organizations for future presbyteries. “They 
maintained their religious life in their wilderness 
homes by closet and family worship, by catechet- 
ical instruction, by meeting on the Sabbath for 
social worship, prayer, reading the Scriptures, 
singing, conference and exhortation. Sometimes 
their Sabbaths were gladdened by the missionary 
preaching the gospel, administering the Sacra- 
ments, and in various ways animating them to 
devout and holy living and the godly training of 
their children. . . . They preached the gospel 
first to the people along or near the Atlantic 
coast ; then advanced with the settlements to the 
foot of the Alleghanies ; then through the gaps in 
the mountains to the new lands beyond where now 
are Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Nashville, Lexington, 
Memphis, New Orleans, St. Louis, Columbus, 
Indianapolis ; and earlier farther north to Albany, 
Troy, Schenectady, Utica, Rome, Syracuse, Au- 
burn, Geneva, Rochester, Buffalo, Erie, Cleve- 
land, Detroit, Chicago, and so on to the Mississippi, 
the Missouri, and eventually to the Rocky Moun- 
tains, and to the shores of the great ocean beyond. 
They established missions among the negroes and 
the Indians; sending Occum to the tribes on 


18 At Our Own Dest 


Long Island, and later to the Oneidas, Mohawks, 
Senecas, Cayugas, and other families of the 
Iroquois ; and David Brainard, and afterwards his 
brother John, to the Indian tribes of New Jersey 
and Pennsylvania—the Delawares, the Shawnees, 
and Tuscaroras: and later still, missionaries like 
Gideon Blackburn to the Cherokees, Choctaws, 
Sanduskies, and other tribes.” 

It is interesting to note that at the very first 
meeting of the General Assembly, the Presby- 
terian Church signalized its organized life by lay- 
ing hold of the great problem of home missions. 
The Committee on Bills and Overtures recom- 
mended “that the state of the frontier settlements 
should be taken into consideration, and mission- 
aries should be sent to them” (Minutes, 1789, p. 
10). A committee of two was appointed to “de- 
vise such measures as might be calculated to carry 
the mission into execution.” The committee re- 
ported asking that each of the synods be requested 
to recommend to the General Assembly at their 
next meeting two members well qualified to be em- 
ployed in missions on the frontier; and the pres- 
byteries were strictly enjoined to take special col- 
lections during the year for defraying the neces- 
sary expenses of the missions. 

In obedience to the order of the General As- 
sembly, the Synod of New York and New Jersey 
recommended to the Assembly of 1790 Rev. Nathan 
Her and Joseph Hart. The Synod of Philadel- 
phia nominated Rey. Dr. George Duffield, but his 
untimely death prevented his entering upon the 


Historical 19 


work. The Synod of Virginia reported that it did 
not have an account of the proceedings of the As- 
sembly, but “substantially complied with the de- 
sign of that mission with an arrangement of their 
own at the last meeting ” (Mins., pp. 23, 25). In- 
formation was received by the Assembly that the 
Synod of the Carolinas was supporting its own 
missionaries. Returns from that first collection for 
home missions ordered by the Assembly showed 
an aggregate of about $400. The Assembly 
adopted a form of commission for the missionary 
and required him “ to keep a distinct journal of his 
progress, and to make report to the next General 
Assembly.” The effect of this movement can be 
but slightly estimated, considering the fact that 
nearly a hundred thousand missionaries have 
served in this capacity under the commission. 

The minutes of the Assembly show that the sub- 
ject of home missions came in for a full share of 
consideration at each meeting of the Assembly. 

In 1798 it took particular action regarding the 
character of the men to be commissioned, and the 
tenor of their preaching and other services. It 
declared that “the missionaries should be men of 
ability, piety, zeal, prudence, and popular talents.” 
They were also to preach the important doctrines 
of grace, to organize churches where opportunity 
offered, and administer the ordinances and instruct 
the people from house to house and with the self-de- 
nial of their Master be wholly devoted to their min- 
istry (Minutes, p. 113). 

In 1801 the General Assembly took the im- 


20 At Our Own Door 


portant step resulting in the “ Plan of Union” with 
the Congregational Church, “ to promote the spirit 
of accommodation between those inhabitants of 
the new settlements who hold the Presbyterian 
and those who hold the Congregational form of 
Government,” providing that Presbyterian congre- 
gations might settle Congregational pastors and 
vice versa. It seems to have originated in a spirit 
of brotherly love and the exigencies of scattered 
communities ; but it has since been repudiated and 
repented by both churches. From the Congrega- 
tional standpoint the author of “ Leavening the 
Nation” asserts: “It was a plan without thought, 
hope or faith as to the future of America; a hitch- 
ing of her home-missionary wagon to a stake in- 
stead of a star. . . . Presbyterianism had 
never proved indigenous to the soil east of the 
Hudson, and by an illogical parity of reasoning, 
Congregationalism was assumed to be equally 
foreign to soil west of that river. Hence it was 
not uncommon for New England pastors to advise 
their emigrating members ‘to be loyal Presbyte- 
rians at the west.’ Students in the seminary were 
taught that ‘ Congregationalism is a river rising in 
New England and emptying itself south and west 
into Presbyterianism ’” (p. 40). _ From the Presby- 
terian standpoint it was the means of introducing 
into its harmonious fold a new theology and a dis- 
cordant element, which finally rent the Presby- 
terian Church asunder in the great schism of 1837, 
which was not healed till 1870; and which has 
again brought into one fold at least of the Presby- 


Historical 21 


terian Church men of widely divergent views, 
making always imminent the possibility of another 
great schism. 

One hundred years ago the Assembly of 1802 
took a step in advance by appointing a Standing 
Committee on Home Missions, consisting of seven 
members, four ministers and three elders, whose 
duty it should be to collect information rela- 
tive to missions and missionaries, designate the 
places where missionaries should be employed, to 
nominate missionaries to the Assembly, and gen- 
erally to transact under the direction of the As- 
sembly the missionary business (Minutes, pp. 257, 
258, 259). This was the beginning of the organ- 
ized home mission work of the Presbyterian 
Church. Heretofore it had been conducted directly 
by the action of the Assembly. Henceforth the 
work would be conducted by a permanent com- 
mittee making annual reports of its sessions to the 
Assembly. 

Among the earliest appointments were Rev. 
Gideon Blackburn to the Cherokee Indians of 
Tennessee, and Licentiate Jas. Hoge, of Lexington 
Presbytery, “to serve for six months in the State 
of Ohio and the Natchez district.” Who can esti- 
mate the influence of these remarkable men upon 
the destiny of the church and the evangelization 
of the country! In the spirit of Abraham many 
such men “ called of God ” have gone out by faith, 
“not knowing whither,” but in the providence of 
God to inaugurate some new and important de- 
parture for the enlargement of the kingdom of 


22 At Our Own Door 


God. ‘“ When the historian writes the history of 
national progress in the nineteenth century, he will 
first of all take account of the home missionary. 
The march of our civilization is to the music of our 
religion. This gave theinspiration. Without that 
music the pioneer had not marched to such victory ” 
(Dr. OC. L. Thompson). To the fidelity of these 
home missionaries’and the character of their work, 
Dr. H. C. Minton bears testimony: “They need 
no mead of praise, no word of cheer—and too 
often they get none. The foreign missionary gets 
his ‘ year off’ now and then, but our solitary home 
missionary, plodding on year after year, never. I 
have seen something of the life and work of our 
home missionaries in the west, and I believe that, 
for hard work and poor pay, and small stint of 
appreciation, and all else which the world and 
the flesh eschew and fain would avoid, the home 
missionary in our western states and territories is 
the peer of many of those who are carrying the 
gospel to the far away heathen. There is a 
romance of the work in either case. They are all 
empire-builders alike. They bring to their work 
richer tribute than even Cecil Rhodes could com- 
mand. They build themselves into their work; 
and this is just as true of the missionaries of lowa 
and Dakota and California as it is of those of 
Japan and China and the islands of the sea. It is 
the romance of faith and heroism, and trial and 
self-sacrifice, but it is also the romance of promise 
and patriotism and service and of the crown at 
last.” 


Historical 23 


The increase of population necessitated a still 
further advance of the work, and so the Assembly 
of 1809 gives authority to the presbyteries to em- 
ploy missionaries in their own bounds at such 
places as seemed to them to have the greatest 
need of missionary labor ; and the next Assembly 
in 1810 authorizes the publication of the first mis- 
sionary periodical by the Committee of Missions, 
to be entitled Missionary Intelligence. 

The year 1816 marks a great change in the ad- 
ministration of the work, when the Assembly 
considered it necessary to make larger plans for 
carrying on the work, and erected the Committee 
of Missions into a Board, “with full power to 
transact all the business of the missionary cause, 
only requiring the Board to report annually to 
the General Assembly.” It was entitled “The 
Board of Missions, acting under authority of the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 
the United States” ; and was authorized to appoint 
missionaries whenever they may deem it proper ; 
to make such advances to missionaries as may be 
judged necessary; to take such measures for 
establishing throughout our churches auxiliary 
missionary societies, and generally to conduct the 
work of home missions in all its phases. 

It would be impossible in this brief sketch to 
follow in detail all of the home missionary opera- 
tions of the Church; for the history of the Church 
is largely a history of missions. Before we begin 
to follow the separate fortunes of the Southern 
branch of the Church, we can quote in passing 


24 At Our Own Door 


only the famous overture to the Assembly of 1881, 
offered by Dr. John H. Rice, founder of Union 
Theological Seminary in Virginia, in which he 
asks the Assembly to recognize more emphatically 
the mission of the Church: “ First, That the Pres- 
byterian Church in the United States is a mis- 
sionary society, the object of which is to aid in the 
conversion of the world; and that every mem- 
ber of the Church is a member for life of the 
said society, and bound in the maintenance of 
his Christian character to do all in his power 
for the accomplishment of this object. Second, 
Ministers of the gospel in connection with the 
Presbyterian Church are most solemnly required 
to present this subject to the members of their 
respective congregations, using every effort to 
make them feel their obligations and to induce 
them to contribute according to their ability.” 
It is said by Dr. T. C. Johnson in his history, that 
“this paper stirred the Church.” It were “a 
consummation devoutly to be wished” if the 
great truth of this overture could find a per- 
manent abode in the consciousness of the Church, 
and arouse her to a higher appreciation of her 
great and chief mission among men. 

The Southern Presbyterian Church “was born 
amid the awful throes of Civil War. The growth 
of conflicting social and political opinions in the 
great commonwealth had caused a rupture be- 
tween the North and South, across whose ever- 
widening chasm the arms of the Church could not 
reach. 


Historical 25 


“The smoke of battle around Fort Sumter had 
scarcely cleared away, and the whole country was 
swept by a wave of tragic emotion, when the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
met in the city of Philadelphia, May, 1861. Under 
stress of an excitement that carried many of the 
commissioners off their feet, the famous ‘Spring 
Resolutions’ were passed, which effectually severed 
the ecclesiastical bonds between North and 
South. 

“The paper embodying these resolutions was 
considered by the Southern Commissioners as ‘a 
writ of ejectment’ of all that part of the Church 
in the bounds of the territory that had seceded 
from the Union; and it became the occasion of 
the withdrawal of forty-seven presbyteries from 
the old Church. These presbyteries through 
their commissioners met in the fair city of 
Augusta, Georgia, December 4, 1861, and or- 
ganized the General Assembly of the Confederate 
States, now popularly known as the Southern 
General Assembly. 

“The conduct of this Assembly at the first meet- 
ing presents to the world a sublime spectacle of 
faith. With dismal and bloody civil strife abroad 
in the land, the roar of cannon borne upon every 
breeze, sectional feeling running high, and com- 
pelling brethren of like religious faith to go apart, 
that memorable gathering of God’s servants rose 
sheer above the surroundings to the contemplation 
ofthe Saviour’s farewell command, and looking 
out upon the whole world as their field of opera- 


26 At Our Own Door 


tion, accepted the divine charge in the following 
beautiful words: ‘The General Assembly desires 
distinctly and deliberately to inscribe on our 
Church’s banner as she now first unfolds it to the 
world, in immediate connection with the headship 
of her Lord, His last command, “ Go ye into all the 
world, and preach the gospel to every creature,” 
regarding this as the great end of her organiza- 
tion’” (Rey. P. H. Gwinn). 

Concerning the elements which made up the 
constituency of the Southern Church, Dr. Moses 
D. Hoge testifies that these several strains of 
European Presbyterianism were so blended as to 
make “a body of Christians singularly homogene- 
ous, conservative, truth-loving, and ardently de- 
voted to right and liberty. The courtly and 
cultivated Huguenot, the stern and simple-hearted 
Highlander, the strong earnest faithful Scotch- 
Trish, the conscientious Puritan, and the frank, 
honest Teuton, contributed of the wealth of their 
character and the glory of their history. Devo- 
tion to principle was the guiding star of their 
action.” 

In 1859, two years before the separation, the 
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church 
having its office of home missions in New York 
established a Southwestern Advisory Committee 
of Domestic Missions in New Orleans. In the 
division of the Church this committee had left to 
it no other course than that of independent 
action. It reported to the first General Assembly 
of the Southern Church in Augusta, Ga., De- 


Historical 27 


cember 4, 1861, and turned over by request its 
records, work, and funds to that Assembly. 

Instead of a Board of Missions, the Southern 
Assembly adopted the principles of Dr. J. H. 
Thornwell in his contention against Boards, and 
appointed “ An Executive Committee of Domestic 
Missions,” located at New Orleans, La., with Rev. 
John Leyburn, D. D., as Secretary. The Execu- 
tive Committee differs from the Board in that it is 
more directly amenable to the Assembly, and is 
reappointed at each meeting of the Assembly. 

Under the exigencies of the war, the location 
of the Committee was changed from New Orleans 
to Athens, Ga., then to Montgomery, Ala., and 
finally combined with that of foreign missions at 
Columbia, 8. C., with Dr. John Leighton Wilson 
as Secretary. “ During the war the principal work 
of the Committee was that of providing chaplains 
for the army. About one hundred chaplains were 
supported from this treasury. It will never be 
possible in this world to estimate the value of that 
camp ministry. Religious interest was frequently 
profound, with many professions of faith. Many 
brave soldiers went directly from religious worship 
to death. Many received the ministrations of 
these chaplains in hospitals, and many survived 
the awful conflict and date their religious life and 
Christian character to the faithful work of these 
godly and noble servants of God” (Dr. J. N. 
Craig). 

“The Advisory Committee had been created by 
an order of the General Assembly of 1859, and 


28 At Our Own Door 


had gone into active operation in November of 
that year. It had presented two annual reports to 
the old Assembly through the parent Board. On 
March 1, 1861, it had a balance in its treasury of 
$7,729.55 ; it had received between March and 
November $4,490.37, having thus during those 
eight months $12,219.92. About forty mission- 
aries were on November 1st in commission, which 
was about the number in commission at the meet- 
ing of the Philadelphia Assembly. Through the 
good providence of the blessed Master and Head 
amidst the terrible convulsions of the times, the 
work of missions had moved on without a jar. 
One cannot fail to notice the wonderful manner in 
which God had prepared the Southern Presby- 
terian Church for the storm, in the creation of this 
agency, without which domestic missions upon her 
extended frontier must have been brought ab- 
ruptly to a close, and many faithful laborers with- 
out a warning cast loose upon the world without 
visible prospect of support for themselves and their 
families ” (Dr. T. C. Johnson). 

At this first meeting of the Assembly, the duties 
of the Church Extension Committee as organized 
under the old Assembly were assigned to this 
Committee of Domestic Missions; but a still 
heavier responsibility was laid upon its shoulders 
when the Assembly gave it as wards the 4,000,000 
of negroes in the South, by passing the following 
resolution : 

“That the great field of missionary operation 
among our colored population falls more imme- 


Historical 29 


diately under the care of the ‘Committee of Do- 
mestic Missions ; and that the committee be urged 
to give it serious and constant attention, and the 
presbyteries to cooperate with the committee in 
securing pastors and missionaries for this field” 
(Minutes, p. 20). That the spiritual interests of 
these wards were not neglected is evident from the 
fact that such men (than whom none were greater) 
as Revs. Joseph Stiles, D. D., Flinn Dickson, D. 
D., John B. Adger, D. D., John L. Girardeau, D. 
D., and Charles A. Stillman, D. D., devoted a large 
part of their ministerial life as pastors and shep- 
herds of the colored people. This department of 
home missions finally developed into an Executive 
Committee of Colored Evangelization, with Rev. 
Dr. A. L. Phillips as efficient Secretary, and now 
ably managed by Rev. Dr. J. G. Snedecor, Secre- 
tary. Tuscaloosa Institute was erected to train 
for their needs a colored ministry, which has al- 
ready done a noble work in this sphere. 

One more special item of our first Assembly 
calls for distinct notice, its characteristic action in 
regard to the work among the Indians. It was 
the first foreign mission work attempted by the 
Southern Church, and would not be noticed in this 
sketch of home missions but for the fact that in 
1889 the Indian work was transferred to the Ex- 
ecutive Committee of home missions, and is now 
an important factor in this department. It illus- 
trates also the fact that home and foreign missions 
are essentially one, and so often overlap that it is 
impossible to distinguish between them. 


30 At Our Own Door 


The Indians of the Territory chose to cast in 
their lot with the South, and it is estimated that 
the Choctaw nation furnished fully 3,000 soldiers 
for service, and the Cherokees nearly 2,000. Rev. 
J. Leighton Wilson, whom Dr. R. L. Dabney char- 
acterized as one who “ wielded more real power in 
the Southern Presbyterian Church than any other 
man in it,” interested the Church in these Indian 
tribes, raised and expended about $20,000 among 
them in missions during 1861. Having made a 
personal visit to the Indian Territory, he made a 
report to the Assembly as provisional Secretary, 
whereupon the Assembly passed the following 
resolution, in which Dr. T. C. Johnson says, “ it 
betrayed a glorious missionary zeal.” 

“Resolved, 2. That the Assembly accepts with 
joyful gratitude to God the care of these missions 
among our southwestern Indian tribes, the Choc- 
taws, Chickasaws, Creeks, Seminoles, and Chero- 
kees, thus thrown upon them by His providence: 
missions whose whole history has been signalized 
by a degree of success attending few other modern 
missions; to a people comprising nearly seventy 
thousand souls, to whom we are bound by obliga- 
tions of special tenderness and strength, and whose 
spiritual interests must ever be dear to the Chris- 
tians of this land. 

“ And the Assembly assures these people and the 
beloved missionaries who have so long and success- 
fully labored among them of our fixed purpose 
under God to sustain and carry forward the blessed 
work, whose foundations have been so nobly and 


Historical 31 


deeply laid. We, therefore, decidedly approve of 
the recommendations of the report, that six new 
missionaries be sent to this field speedily, two of 
them to commence in new missions among the 
Cherokees, and that a few small boarding-schools 
be established with the special design of raising up 
a native ministry. 

“3, That in the striking fact that the same up- 
heaving and overturning that have called us into ex- 
istence as a distinct organization and shut us out 
from present access to distant nations have also laid 
thus upon our hearts and hands these interesting 
missions with their fifteen stations, twelve or- 
dained missionaries, and sixteen hundred com- 
municants, so at the very moment of commencing 
our separate existence we find them forming in 
fact an organized part of our body; and also in 
the gratifying promptitude with which our Church 
has advanced to their support—the Assembly recog- 
nizes most gratefully the clear foreshadowing of the 
Divine purpose to make our beloved Church an 
eminently missionary Church ; and a heart-stirring 
call upon all her people to engage in this blessed 
work with new zeal and self-denial” (Minutes, 
pp- 16, 17). 

Reports from the Indian Presbytery have been 
irregular and very unsatisfactory, but statistics 
show that about 2,100 have been received on pro- 
fession of faith, and about 300 by certificate, mak- 
ing an average of about sixty a year. It is true 
that our roll now contains scarcely a thousand 
communicants among them, but it can be partly 


32 At Our Own Door 


accounted for by the fact that owing to the scarcity 
of funds to prosecute the work the whole northern 
section of the Indian Territory was transferred 
to the Northern Church. Death explains the 
remainder. ; 

Recently at a meeting of the Indian Presbytery, 
Rev. Silas Bacon, a full-blood Choctaw preacher 
said: “It is often asked what has become of the 
money spent on Indian missions. If you will come 
with me to yon cemetery, I will show you the 
graves of hundreds of the sainted dead. Is the 
money wasted that filled these graves with Chris- 
tians instead of heathen?” Let the Church hear 
and answer that question. If Indian Presbytery 
cannot account to the Church on earth in num- 
bers for the money expended, she can render good 
account to the Church in glory! “The Lord shall 
count, when He writeth up the people, that this 
man was born there.” 

Rev. John Leyburn served the Church accept- 
ably as Secretary of domestic missions for two 
years; and then foreign and domestic missions 
were united under the wise management of Dr. 
John Leighton Wilson, who for fourteen years 
had been missionary in Africa, a man of eminent 
piety, great prudence, and forethought well nigh 
inspired, raised up of God to serve the Church in 
time of greatest peril. These were dark days of 
disaster, ruin, bloodshed and agony. “The ma- 
jority of the male membership entered the army 
of the Confederacy, and consecrated their lives and 
property to the cause of their country. Ministers 


Historical 33 


left their churches and joined the army as chap- 
lains. The treasury of domestic missions was ex- 
hausted to keep religion alive within the camp. 
These were not years of gospel expansion, but of 
gracious ministry to a noble army whose ranks 
were constantly thinning, to brave soldiers, many 
of whom went straight from religious worship to 
death. 

“And after the war what? The horrors of re- 
construction; the tattered remnants of a once 
glorious army, broken in fortune and spirit; 
smoking ruins and barren fields; thousands and 
thousands of negroes invested with the elective 
franchise, and through the aid of carpet-baggers, 
become the dominant force in political life ; once 
prosperous churches reduced to poverty, and va- 
cant because their pastors had perished in battle, 
or were compelled to betake themselves to bread- 
winning ; colleges robbed of their endowments, 
and theological seminaries closed ; a generation of 
noble men fallen asleep, with few or none to take 
their places; the walls of Zion broken down, and 
the Southern Presbyterian Church but ‘a shell of 
an organization, with a thin clerical roll and a 
long list of vacant churches.’ 

“Crushed to the dust by the terrible events of 
war, and chastened by many sorrows, the brave 
people of the South possessed still the faith of 
their fathers. In the face of a stern military 
despotism, they began to build with strenuous 
hand upon the ruins of better days almost before 
the camp-fires had died away. In church matters, 


34 At Our Own Door 


as in everything else, it was like starting afresh. 
There was much to be done—a ministry educated, 
houses of worship rebuilt, broken down churches 
revived, officers found and elected, and ministerial 
support secured ” (Rev. P. H. Gwinn). 

Yet in these adverse and forbidding circum- 
stances the record of the Committee shows that it 
aided in the support of 220 ministers. At the 
same time it assisted in erecting and repairing 
thirty churches at a cost of $8,000. The faith of 
the Church during her baptism of fire, her courage 
in supreme danger, her patient suffering in defeat, 
her determined resolution in great poverty to arise 
and rebuild her broken walls, her steadfast pur- 
pose turning defeat into victory, make her worthy 
of a place in history by the side of Nehemiah, and 
are the admiration alike of friend and foe. 

In 1866 under the weighty influence of the 
memorial of Dr. J. Leighton Wilson, the Assembly 
converted the Committee of Domestic Missions 
into the Committee of Sustentation. The time 
had not come for advancing “into the regions be- 
yond.” The Church felt the need of sustaining 
the organizations already established, and rehabil- 
itating that which had fallen into decay. That 
were work enough at present to occupy hand and 
head and heart. 

The newly organized Committee of Sustentation 
girded itself to the task, and announced as its 
mission a fourfold purpose: “1. To aid feeble 
churches in the support of their pastors and sup- 
plies. 2. To aid in the support of missionaries 


Historical 35 


and evangelists wherever such aid is asked. 3. To 
assist in rebuilding and repairing church edifices 
wherever the people have not the means of them- 
selves to do it. 4. To assist missionaries or min- 
isterial laborers in getting from one field to an- 
other where they are without the means of doing 
this themselves” (Minutes, 1867, pp. 155, 156). 

All funds went into a common treasury, and 
each presbytery drew upon that fund according 
to its particular needs and the resources of the 
treasury. This plan modeled after the sustenta- 
tion plan of the Free Church of Scotland would 
give unity to the whole Church. Carrying out the 
injunction of Scripture, “Bear ye one another’s 
burdens,” it transformed the Church into one 
‘great Presbyterian Brotherhood, by which the 
stronger presbyteries rallied to the support of the 
weaker; and it was hoped a fund would be left 
always as a surplus to push the work “into the 
regions beyond.” 

The Committee did noble service to the Church 
and the cause of Christ. Many weak churches 
became self-supporting, and the Church grew and 
prospered. However, no machinery is perfect, 
and various difficulties were raised. Whatever of 
failure resulted, was due, not so much to defective 
plan as to the lack of hearty cooperation. Some 
presbyteries refused their cooperation altogether ; 
others promised to give the Committee a per cent. 
of collections, which was carelessly performed ; 
many zigzagged back and forth from cooperation 
to non-cooperation, cultivating unwittingly the 


36 At Our Own Door 


spirit of independence and sadly marring the unity 
of the spirit and the unity of the cause. Still the 
work grew, and the duties of the combined offices 
of foreign missions and sustentation became too 
burdensome for even such strong shoulders as 
those of Dr. Wilson; consequently, “in 1872 the 
General Assembly elected as coordinate Secretary 
the Rev. Richard McIlwain, D. D., now president 
of Hampden-Sydney College, into whose hands 
principally the home mission department fell, and 
by whose wise, popular, and energetic administra- 
tion the sustentation and evangelistic work was 
pushed forward throughout our Church,” the year 
previous to his election, the Assembly having added 
the evangelistic arm for more aggressive work. 

In 1875, the offices were transferred from Co- 
lumbia, 8. C., to Baltimore, Md. In 1879, the name 
of the Committee was changed to “Home Mis- 
sions, including Sustentation, Church Erection, and 
Evangelistic Departments.” In 1882 the offices of 
home and foreign missions were separated, and 
Rev. Richard McIlwain, D. D., became Secretary 
of home missions. In 1883 Dr. Mcllwain resigned 
to accept the presidency of Hampden-Sydney Col- 
lege, Virginia, and Rev. J. N. Craig, D. D., pastor 
of Holly Springs, Miss., was elected. In 1886 the 
office of home missions was transferred to At- 
lanta, Ga. 

The administration of Dr. Craig lasted seven- 
teen years, and was characterized by great fidelity 
to the cause and loyalty to the Church; and he 
literally died in the harness. “ His tragic but tri- 


Historical a7 


umphant death is fresh in the minds of the mem- 
bers of the synod of Virginia. He had just fin- 
ished an address of exceptional ability before the 
synod at its recent meeting in Newport News, 
when his spirit fled to join ‘ the spirits of the just 
men made perfect’; and his body was left on the 
rostrum majestic in death. Not till our dying 
day will we forget that scene where time and 
eternity seemed to crowd each other, and heaven 
and earth were but an inch apart. As the pros- 
trate form of the venerable Secretary rested upon 
the rostrum before a large assembly of God’s serv- 
ants, sad of heart, and hushed into silence in the 
presence of death, he appeared still to be mutely 
appealing for a more hearty, united, and harmoni- 
ous support of the greatest cause of the Church. 
‘Though dead, he yet speaketh’” (Rev. P. H. 
Gwinn). 

This was October, 1900, and the Executive Com- 
mittee met in Atlanta during November, and 
elected Rev. Dr. T. P. Cleveland to serve as Secre- 
tary till the meeting of the Assembly at Little 
Rock, Ark.; at which time, feeling the grave re- 
sponsibility of selecting a successor, the Assembly 
appointed a special hour for the election to be pre- 
ceded by a season of special prayer for divine 
guidance. The choice fell on Rev. S. L. Morris, 
D. D., pastor of Tattnall Square Church, Macon, 
Ga., who, by reason of the remarkable circum- 
stances attending the election, regarded it as the 
call of God, and entered upon the duties of office 
July 1, 1901. 


38 At Our Own Door 


During the administration of Dr. Craig in 1893, 
the Assembly made the most important change in 
the plan of home missions in all its history by 
separating it into Local and Assembly’s Home 
Missions. Each presbytery was expected to carry 
on its own work by taking collections in February, 
June, and August for this purpose. This made the 
Executive Committee of home missions almost ex- 
clusively an aggressive agency of the Church for 
evangelizing “the regions beyond.” The Church 
was directed to give January and September of- 
ferings for this object,.and the Committee was 
“instructed ordinarily to apply its funds to the 
development of the work in the weaker portions 
of the Church which lie in the southern, south- 
western, and western portions of our territory, in- 
cluding Indian Territory, New Mexico, Arizona, 
and Southern California” (Minutes, 1893). For 
ten years the Committee has operated under these 
instructions, doing its work almost exclusively in 
Arkansas, Florida, Indian Territory, and Texas. 

The bane of home mission work in the 
Southern Church has been the ceaseless and need- 
less changing of machinery and plans of opera- 
tion. Compared with the Northern Presbyterian 
Church, which has made only one change in the 
location of its Board in a hundred years, and 
scarcely any in its plan of operation, steadily 
and persistently pursuing its clearly defined pur- 
pose onward to ever-widening success, the Southern 
Church has carried its Committee from New 
Orleans to Athens, Ga., to Montgomery, Ala., to - 


Historical 39 


Columbia, 8. C., to Baltimore, Md., and to Atlanta, 
Ga., and listens at every Assembly to some 
“overture” for changing the machinery. 

In consequence of this restlessness of the 
Church, the Assembly at Little Rock, Ark., in 
1901 appointed an Ad-Interim Committee to find if 
possible some better plan of carrying on its home 
mission work. After studying the problem for 
- two years, this committee composed of one repre- 
sentative from each synod made its report to the 
Assembly at Lexington, Va., 1903. The Assembly 
in adopting it, so modified the report as to make 
it a compromise between the old plan operated for 
twenty-seven years and the one in operation for 
the past ten years. 

The new plan adopted and now in operation is 
as follows: 

“1. The home missionary work of the Church 
is a unit, but for its better administration, it is 
divided into two departments, Local and General. 

“2. The Assembly urges upon all its synods and 
presbyteries to prosecute the work of local home 
missions within their own bounds to the extent of 
their ability, and reserves for the use of these courts, 
the months of February, June, and August to 
defray the expenses of their local work. 

“3. The Assembly’s home mission work em- 
braces the whole Church for the purpose of aiding 
the weaker presbyteries and frontier districts in 
the various synods, but more especially in new 
territory and unorganized sections of the West. 

“4, The Executive Committee shall aid within 


40 At Our Own Door 


its ability the work in any presbytery where it is 
shown to the satisfaction of the Committee, that 
said presbytery is unable to compass the work; 

and in all cases the presbyteries shall secure offer- 

ings for this cause from their churches during the 

months designated for this purpose. 

“5. The General Assembly appoints two annual 
collections for Assembly’s Home Missions, includ- 
ing the causes formerly known as Sustentation, 
Evangelistic, and Church Erection, and appoints 
the months of January and September for the 
presentation of this work, and urges upon all its 
synods and presbyteries to endeavor to have this 
department of the work presented to the 
churches distinctly upon its own merits and to 
secure liberal collections from the churches in 
their bounds” (Minutes, 1903). 

At first glance there seems but little difference 
between this and the plan adopted in 1893, but a 
careful study of the two will reveal the fact that 
the previous plan was largely local, whilst the new 
plan makes the Assembly’s Home Missions stand 
for all the destitutions of the Church, the prefer- 
ence being given to the weaker presbyteries and 
unorganized sections of the West. It may not be 
perfect; possibly nothing could be devised which 
would give satisfaction to all sections with their 
conflicting interests and diverse methods of work ; 
but the success of the work will not depend on the 
perfection of the machinery so much as on the 
hearty and harmonious cooperation of every 
presbytery, and the aggressive policy and wise 


Historical 41 


management of the Committee under the blessing 
of God. 

Is it possible to place the matter in stronger 
light than has been done by Rev. P. H. Gwinn in 
his able and timely article, “ Our forty years in 
the Home Field,” in which he challenges the 
loyalty of Presbyterianism: “ Has the Southern 
General Assembly become a corporation that her 
inferior courts should be found in a state of insub- 
ordination ? Certain it is that for years many of 
the inferior ecclesiastical bodies have rebelled 
against the Assembly’s scheme of home missions. 
The presbyteries have been designated as ‘ co- 
operating ’ and ‘ non-cooperating.’ No matter what 
scheme the Assembly adopted, it was ignored by 
certain presbyteries with a nonchalance that is 
simply appalling. This has gone on till lax ob- 
servance of ecclesiastical authority has become 
common, and threatens to seriously disturb the 
continuity of our Church. Perhaps the last public 
utterance of the venerable Dr. Dabney was to lift 
his voice in timely warning against the growth of 
this spirit. No cause of the Church has suffered 
more from insubordination of church courts than 
home missions. The wonder is that so much has 
been accomplished with such a guerilla system. 

“Now, we would not diminish by one iota the 
corporate power of the Church; only adjust and 
apply it through cooperation. We might show in 
various ways that the existence of a corporation is 
often due more to mechanical device than to or- 
ganic connection, smothering the individual life of 


42 At Our Own Door 


its members. On the other hand, the element of 
corporate power ‘may also be kept so much in 
abeyance as to lose its legitimate force and give 
an exaggerated development of the principle of in- 
dividualism, tending to schism, contention, and 
paralysis of the corporate action.’ The effectual 
antidote to either extreme is cooperation, a splendid 
mutualism which neither suppresses the individual 
nor creates rebellion. As applied to a religious 
body, it is a grand brotherhood of believers, moved 
by the love of Jesus to daily warfare with sin, and 
to constant and united effort to give energy and 
efficiency to every enterprise of the Church. _ This 
is a body whose members obey the spirit of Jesus, 
in which it is the glory of the strong to help the 
weak, and where regularly constituted authority 
finds becoming reverence and loyalty. 
One needs not the prophetic vision to see the dis- 
astrous tendency of the growing independence of 
synods, presbyteries and sessions of our Church. 
It is clear that some way must be found to check 
this tendency and to elicit, combine and direct the 
energies of the whole Church in one sacred effort 
for the propagation of the Gospel throughout the 
destitute regions of our country. If the General 
Assembly possess the power neither to persuade 
nor to compel the inferior courts to regard her 
mandates in matters involving such momentous 
issues, then let the Church surrender her boasted 
theory of a ‘ Jure divino form of Government.’ ” 
“Tf we do not hang together,” said Benjamin 
Franklin in the American Revolution, “we will 


Historical 43 


all hang separately.” If the presbyteries do not 
cooperate together under the leadership and con- 
trol of the Assembly, the cause of missions will 
retrograde, and the Church disintegrate. The 
Church seems to be awakened to its dereliction in 
the past, and there are blessed tokens of a new 
spirit of fellowship and loyalty on all sides. It is 
said that Edison on board an ocean steamer, gazing 
upon the waves rolling and dashing themselves 
into spray, in their wild, restless motion, ex- 
claimed: “It makes me perfectly wild to see all 
of this power going to waste.” According to Dr. 
Strong: “The sun’s heat which falls on the sur- 
face of Manhattan Island is sufficient, we are told, 
to drive all the steam engines of the world. The 
force of atomic motion is alike irresistible and im- 
measurable. Our present knowledge of electricity 
assures us of its boundless possibilities; and Na- 
ture is now whispering in the ear of Science some 
of her secrets, which suggest the possibility of 
giving to material civilization, within a few years, 
an impetus greater even than that resulting from 
the application of steam.” In like manner there 
is latent power enough in the Presbyterian Church 
now going to waste to propagate its faith in every 
nook and corner of our great Southland, if it could 
be properly directed and utilized. God speed the 
day ! 

This historical sketch of the growth of Home 
Missions cannot be more fittingly closed than bya 
glance at results. The organic life of the Southern 
Church began with ten synods and forty-seven 


44 At Our Own Door 


presbyteries, containing about 700 ministers, 1,000 
churches, and 75,000 communicants, increased by 
the addition after the war of the Synods of Missouri 
and Kentucky, and the erection of the Synod of 
Florida. It now numbers, after the lapse of forty 
years, thirteen synods, eighty-two presbyteries, 
1,517 ministers, 3,044 churches, and 235,142 com- 
municants. Presbyteries and ministers have in- 
creased about one hundred per cent.; whilst 
churches and communicants have increased two 
hundred per cent. It was not until 1870 that the 
Southern Church was in a position to enter upon 
aggressive home missions, so that its real progress 
ought to be estimated for only thirty years. The 
white population of our mission field (Arkansas, 
Florida, Texas, and Indian Territory) has increased 
in thirty years 240 per cent., whilst our church mem- 
bership in that section has increased 410 per cent. 

In these thirty years the Committee of home 
missions has aided in erection of about eight 
hundred churches at a cost of about $100,000, mak- 
ing the property worth about $1,000,000, and pro- 
viding 15,000 persons with church homes. 

At least 2,000 Indian youth have been educated 
in our mission schools, including the majority of 
our Indian preachers, and about 2,400 Indians have 
been received into communion in the church. Five 
missionaries are maintained among the Mexicans in 
Texas, and thirteen Mexican churches have been or- 
ganized among them having a membership at pres- 
ent of 680, and church buildings erected, valued at 
present at $7,500. 


Historical 45 


About 250 home missionaries have been supported 
annually, supplying on an average about 600 
churches and preaching to more than 100,000 people 
year by year. 

The sum total of funds raised by the Southern 
Church and expended in home mission work is 
estimated at nearly $4,000,000. Twenty-three 
millions raised by the Northern Presbyterian 
Church in a century of Missions and nearly four 
millions raised by her younger sister in less than a 
half century, is not a bad showing for either church. 

“But figures are dumb. Statistics are cold, de- 
ceptive things, when used to compute the growth 
of aninvisible kingdom. ‘ Numericals do not voice 
the strong things of religion.’ The sum total of 
sympathy, self-denial and sacrifice cannot be found. 
There is no way to compute the unspeakable joy 
brought to thousands of homes, through the min- 
istry of the word; no way to measure the growth 
of a community in moral excellence ; no symbols 
to express the length and breadth and height of 
faith, mercy, love. Undoubtedly the grandest re- 
sults of our home mission work has been the crea- 
tion of a current of beneficent influence, like the 
Gulf Stream, deep, strong, immeasurable, which 
will increase in volume till it sweeps upon the 
shore of Eternity” (Rev. P. H. Gwinn). 

Now, we face the future, dim, unknown, great 
with possibilities. The achievements of the nine- 
teenth century in science, statecraft, missions, 
scarcely allow the most vivid imagination to hazard 
a guess in outlining the horizon of the new century. 


46 At Our Own Door 


No wonder Dr. C. L. Thompson, the eloquent Sec- 
retary of home missions of the Northern Church, 
with delicate skill touches but the outer garment 
of the future in the fascinating vision : 

“Years ago I had a vision from the summit of 
Pike’s Peak. Through the lifting gates of the 
morning mist the landscape to the east lay re- 
‘ vealed and splendid; towns, villages, farms, plains 
stretching to the eastern horizon—startlingly 
distinct in the dry, morning air. It was a vision 
of civilization. Then turning about to the west, 
the mountains rose in frozen billows to the skies. 
The snowy ridges suggested valleys that could 
not be seen. The vision ended in a teasing haze, 
through which to the south the Spanish peaks 
towered distantly, dim and concealing. It wasa 
vision of the unknown. It comes back to me to- 
day. We stand upon the ridge of the century. 
Behind us distinct and splendid a hundred years 
of home missions unroll to the horizon. Before 
us, vistas of opportunity sentineled and concealed 
by great. events, whose white foreheads rise to- 
wards heaven, as if owning allegiance to Him 
who shapes the future.” 

Presbyterianism began the last century in this 
country a little band, and now “by the good hand 
of our God upon us” it stands upon the threshold 
of the twentieth century in its aggregate strength 
in the United States of twelve denominations, 
12,000 ministers, 15,000 churches and 2,000,000 
communicants, with its missions stretching around 
the globe. 


Historical 47 


Let not hers be the spirit of Laodicea, “I am 
rich and increased with goods and have need of 
nothing ;” but rather that of the chiefest of the 
Apostles, “I count not myself to have ap- 
prehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting 
those things which are behind, and reaching forth 
unto those things which are before, I press to- 
wards the mark”—“ attempting greater things 
for God and expecting greater things from God.” 


I 
THE PROGRAM OF MISSIONS 


THE blood stained Cross was possibly still 
standing on the brow of Calvary, overlooking the 
City of Jerusalem, but the Resurrection was now 
a glorious fact. The risen Christ, Lord and Head 
of the Church, stood on the summit of Olivet, 
with the eleven disciples. On the eve of the 
Ascension, Jesus speaks His very last recorded 
words to the Church: “ And ye shall be witnesses 
unto Me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and 
in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the 
earth.” Having already given His “ Marching 
Orders” to the Church, “Go ye into all the 
world and preach the Gospel to every creature,” 
the Captain of the Redeemed Host now prescribes 
very definitely the order of the March in His last 
words to the Church. 

1. In these words we have Christ’s own pro- 
gram of missions; “And ye shali be witnesses 
unto Me both in Jerusalem ”—city missions ; “and 
in all Judea”—local home missions; “and in 
Samaria”—General Assembly’s missions; “and 
unto the uttermost part of the earth ”—foreign 
missions. According to the orders of Christ, the 
Church is not to begin at the circumference and 
work towards the centre, but “ Beginning at 

48 


The Program of Missions ~ 49 


Jerusalem,” the centre, she is to work towards the 
circumference till the Gospel is “ preached among 
all nations.” Just as a stone dropped into a 
placid lake starts ripples, moving outward in ever 
widening concentric circles, so the Church, start- 
ing at any home centre, must travel to the ut- 
most circumference. 

The Church may assume any one of four 
attitudes towards missions : 

(a) All the emphasis may be placed on foreign 
missions, as has been the policy of the Moravian 
Church. A bishop of that grand, missionary 
Church, travelling recently on the train with a 
Baptist minister, admitted that it had been the 
great mistake of his church. As a consequence, 
it has transferred itself to foreign fields and com- 
paratively lost its grip at home, a tremendous 
factor in the world’s evangelization abroad, but 
an unimportant element in the great struggle of 
spiritual forces for the conquest of this land for 
Christ. (6) It may array itself against missions, 
as has been done by the Primitive Baptist Church ; 
and as a consequence, although containing many 
most excellent Christian people, it is shrivelling 
into smaller proportions and retiring to mountain 
regions and backwoods settlements. (c) The 
emphasis may be placed largely on home missions, 
as in the case of the Methodist Church. As a 
consequence, it leads all denominations in its 
growth and aggressive work in the home field. 
(dq) The emphasis may be placed on home and 
foreign missions alike, as in the case of the 


50 At Our Own Door 


Northern Presbyterian Church. As a con- 
sequence, it is a great spiritual force in the great 
West and throughout the entire world. 

There is never any conflict between home and 
foreign missions, where they are each assigned 
their proper proportions. Each isa stimulus to the 
other. The work of local home missions is to 
‘strengthen thy stakes”; the purpose of the As- 
sembly’s missions makes it the aggressive work of 
the Church to “lengthen thy cords”; whilst the 
sphere of foreign missions stretches “unto the 
uttermost part of the earth.” Increase the home 
mission resources, and the larger will be the income 
for foreign missions. This is following Christ’s 
program for missions in Christ’s own order of the 
march. 

2. The scope of home missions, as operated by 
the General Assembly through its Executive Com- 
mittee at Atlanta, embraces four departments: 

(a) First, in every sense of the word, is the Evan- 
gelistic sphere. The evangelist is a pioneer who 
blazes the way for the future path of the 
Church, in her onward march. The evangelist is the 
advance guard that reconnoitres for the army, that 
“goes forth conquering and to conquer” in the 
name of Christ. The evangelist sows the precious 
seed of divine truth, that others may reap the 
harvest in accordance with the saying of Christ: 
“ Other men labored, and ye are entered into their 
labors.” The evangelist lays the foundation that 
others may rear the superstructure in accord with 
the principle announced by the chiefest of all 


The Program of Missions 51 


evangelists: ‘According to the grace of God, 
which is given unto me, as a wise master-builder, 
I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth 
thereon.” 

There can be no real aggressive work without 
the aid of the evangelist. This department of the 
work includes, not only the evangelists of our fron- 
‘tier presbyteries, but our operations among the 
Mexicans of western Texas. As they come across 
the Rio Grande, in numbers 100,000 strong, we meet 
them with the Gospel in a line of out-posts along 
our border. One of these evangelists, Rev. W. 8. 
Scott, preaching in an unknown tongue, has for 
several years received on an average 100 of these 
Mexicans annually into the Presbyterian Church. 
Can any man, even with better opportunities, ex- 
hibit a granderrecord? Is not this the manifest 
approval of the Master? In addition to this, we 
have our missionaries among the Indians, and our 
evangelists in the new territory opening up “in the 
regions beyond ” the pale of the church, and ad- 
vancing into Oklahoma. 

(6) Following closely upon the heels of the evan- 
gelists, comes the settled pastor, bringing us into 
the sphere of Sustentation. As fast as new churches 
are organized, it is our plan to group them and 
place over them the under shepherd. Nomen are 
ever called to any greater task, requiring them to 
“endure hardness as good soldiers of Christ,” than 
these hard worked, poorly paid, self-sacrificing 
home missionaries of the Church. Only the small- 
est percentage of the Church knows anything of 


52 At Our Own Door 


the privations, difficulties, discouragements, etc., of 
these noble men, called to nurse infant churches in 
the midst of adverse circumstances. Many of them 
would succumb but for the comforting thought, 
God knows ; and so they “endure as seeing Him 
who is invisible.” 

These two departments of home missions may be 
illustrated from the analogy of nature. In nature 
God has two methods of propagating a forest. 
One is by wind-wafted seed, scattered by the 
breezes of heaven ; some falling upon the rocks to 
die, some choked in preoccupied ground, and others 
falling into good and fertile soil to produce rich 
harvests. In the Kingdom of Grace this corre- 
sponds to the evangelistic principle, by which the 
precious seed of divine truth is scattered beside all 
waters. “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the 
evening withhold not thy hand.” God has another 
method still of propagating a forest. The banyan 
tree stretches out a branch, and then drops to the 
earth a tender shoot to take fresh hold on the soil. 
The mother plant does not leave this offspring to 
shift for itself, and live or die, as it may chance. 
The organic life of parent and offspring is one. 
They share a common life. The parent maintains 
the feeble shoot until it grows strong, and then 
uses it to stretch out its branches still farther, and 
again take hold on the soil, and thus a forest 
spreads. In the Kingdom of Grace this corre- 
sponds to the sustentation principle, by which the 
church nourishes its offspring till the weak church 
becomes self-supporting, and in turn nourishes other 


The Program of Missions 52 


churches. By the evangelistic principle she 
“lengthens her cords”; by the sustentation depart- 
ment she “ strengthens her stakes.” 

(c) The very first thing the pastor is called upon 
to meet is the problem of a new church; and this 
brings us into the department of Church Erection. 
In the very first conception of a church building is 
the inquiry always raised, “Can we secure any as- 
sistance?” In almost every instance the pastor 
stimulates them to the herculean task by the sug- 
gestion of a donation from the Assembly’s Com- 
mittee. So the applications for help pour in and 
confront every meeting of the Committee. Yet 
such a small per cent. of our funds can be given to 
this object, that we are compelled to select a few of 
the neediest or most importunate, and decline all 
others; and it is most difficult to convince those 
refused that theirs are not the neediest cases of all. 
This is very discouraging to the churches and very 
embarrassing to the Committee. It is unfortunate 
that the church does not realize, that when any ap- 
plication is denied, it is not the Committee in At- 
lanta, but the Presbyterian Church that declines, 
by withholding the funds; for “we cannot make 
brick without straw.” 

(d) The last department of home missions is 
perhaps the most profitable of all, in proportion to 
the money expended; for “ Mission Schools” of 
the Indian Territory cost “only about three per 
cent. of the funds raised annually. Contrary to 
public opinion, let it be-understood, that the 
Indian children are not the neediest cases, for they 


54 At Our Own Door 


receive some help from the government; but the 
Commissioner of Indian affairs recently reported 
to the Department of the Interior, that the Terri- 
tory contains 119,000 whzte school children, for 
whose education there is not the slightest provision 
whatever. To reach even a percentage of these 
our “Mission Schools” have increased to about a 
dozen. Rocognizing that secular education with- 
out religious training is often a delusion and a 
curse, we are not only teaching the secular 
branches of the common school system, but mak- 
ing the Shorter Catechism one of the text-books ; 
and if the Shorter Catechism be the seed sown, 
“ What shall the harvest be ?” 

Time and space forbid at this point any account 
of these schools. Durant College has grown out 
of one, which now has a $15,000 pressed brick 
building, seven teachers and over 300 scholars. 
At its first opening pupils came from every nook 
and corner of the Indian Territory, every seat and 
desk being taken within two weeks; and there are 
always those in waiting for the first vacancy. 
The government sends us 100 of its wards, paying 
their board and tuition. Who can estimate the 
sphere of its influence, as these young minds are 
being trained to go out into every section of this 
great future state, and become the leaders of 
thought and builders of the Republic! Long may 
this “River” send out its streams to “make glad 
the city of God.” 

3. As to the relation of home missions to the 
other Schemes of the Church, if space permitted, 


The Program of Missions 55 


it would be an easy task to show that our home 
mission work is the basis of all other operations ; 
and to develop it is to equip the Church more fully 
for every phase of her work. 

(a) No more serious problem confronts the 
Church than the decrease in her candidates for the 
ministry. Many explanations are attempted. Is 
not this one potent cause, at least? Candidates 
for the ministry come from small towns and coun- 
try churches, and very seldom from the cities. If 
the Church had pushed her home mission work into 
more of the small towns and country places, 
would not these have more than repaid the ex- 
penditure of money, by furnishing the candidates 
she so sorely needs to-day, to fill the pulpits left 
vacant, as new places open up, and one by one the 
fathers fall asleep ? 

(6) Home missions, beyond all question, is the 
basis of foreign missions. If an army is to ad- 

_vance into the country of the enemy, it needs a 
strong base of supply to sustain its Operation. If 
the Church had been spreading itself more sys- 
tematically at home, it would be supporting a far 
larger number on the foreign field. The Church 
has lost rich, valuable territory enough in the west 
to support a dozen men in Chinaor Japan. Texas 
gives as much to foreign missions to-day as she 
draws from the home treasury. Money must be 
spent in the home field as a basis of operation for 
the foreign. A 

“The immediate and continuous need of foreign 
missions is a base of supply, both of money and of 


56 At Our Own Door 


men. That base has not yet been found on its own 
missionary ground, although self-support in foreign 
missions is beginning to be tentatively discussed. 
But for sometime to come, as in the ninety years 
past, that all important base must be found in 
America, and among the churches planted and yet 
to be planted by home missions. Dry up this 
source of supply for a single year, and missions in 
Africa, China, India, Turkey, and the Islands will 
droop like willows cut off from their water 
courses. And what is true of money is equally 
true of men. Native pastors have been raised up 
in considerable numbers, but the need of American 
trained missionaries continues and increases. 
Already twenty-five per cent. of our foreign mis- 
sionaries have been drawn from home missionary 
soil. . . . Certain forms of speech, which are 
found convenient and even necessary to distin- 
guish their operations, have sometimes obscured 
this truth. It is well to remind ourselves that in 
the last command of Christ there was no ‘home,’ 
there was no ‘foreign’; ‘all the world’ was 
the field: and the Christian who believes in home 
missions but not in the foreign is as far from the 
mind of Christ, as he who believes in foreign mis- 
sions and not in home. The two are one, and as 
seamless as the Master’s robe. 

“ Broad minded men have emphasized this truth in 
many striking utterances. It was this interdepend- 
ence of home and foreign missions that moved 
Austin Phelps to exclaim in that intense style so 
peculiarly his own: ‘If I were a missionary in 


The Program of Missions a7 


Canton, China, my first prayer every morning 
would be for the success of American home mis- 
sions, for the sake of Canton, China.’ It was 
this that led Dr. R. 8S. Storrs more than twenty 
years ago, to write from Florence, Italy: ‘The 
future of the world is pivoted on the question 
whether the Protestant churches of America 
can hold, enlighten, purify, the peoples born or 
gathered into its great compass.’ Marcus Whit- 
man Montgomery, an intense home missionary 
worker, gave expression to the same sentiment 
at Saratoga ten years ago: ‘The United States 
of to-day is the mountain top of the hopes of 
many nations’” (Leavening the Nation). 

In seeking to arouse the church to the necessity 
of occupying this land for Christ by pushing home 
missions after the example of our Methodist and 
Baptist brethren, we have excused ourselves by 
saying, “ Ah! but we are a foreign mission church. 
See how much more we are doing in proportion 
on that line.” In the meanwhile, these denomina- 
tions have been actively spreading themselves in 
this country and hedging us in at home, until the 
time is not far distant when they will sweep by us 
in their foreign mission work from sheer force of 
numbers. One hundred members, giving twenty- 
five cents apiece to foreign missions, will count 
more in the aggregate than ten giving a dollar 
each. The great disparity between home and 
foreign missions in our Church is not to be reme- 
died by relaxing our foreign mission zeal, in order 
to retrieve our lost territory at home. Perish the 


58 At Our Own Door 


thought! On the contrary, lifting our standard 
of foreign mission efforts ever higher, at the same 
time let the Church emphasize her home mission 
work, as equally important, and by strengthening 
her stakes at home, she will be more able to 
lengthen her cords abroad. Money spent on home 
missions to-day will yield abundant fruit for for- 
eign missions in the future. 

4. The costliest mistake of the Southern Pres- 
byterian Church has been the neglect of its home 
mission work. An empire has been lost in the 
West. In some sections weak churches have been 
allowed to die, and the fields abandoned. In other 
cases the effort was never made until the tide had 
ebbed and gone out forever. 

“There is a tide in the aftairs of men (and 
churches) which taken at its flood leads on to for- 
tune, but omitted ——!” 

It may not be possible to recover all of the 
ground that has been lost, but “there remaineth 
very much land yet to be possessed ”; and our ob- 
ject now is to arouse the Church to her opportu- 
nity and responsibility in this great and aggressive 
work. ‘ 

Upon entering the work, the present Secretary 
first faithfully informed the Church of its lost 
empire in the West, and then turning his face to- 
wards a hopeful future, began to sound the call 
to advance, in what he termed “ A Forward Move- 
ment,” even in the face of the debt left as a legacy 
of the former administration. Backing up his 
call such churches as Memphis First, Sherman 


The Program of Missions 59 


First, Knoxville Third, Athens, Ga., Central and 
North Avenue Atlanta, and some generous friends, 
came forward and offered to support each an in- 
dividual missionary. May their generation in- 
crease! Encouraged by these the Committee sent 
an evangelist to Oklahoma and occupied new 
towns in the Indian Territory. Then came pro- 
tests from certain quarters against any “forward 
movement,” and in favor of simply “holding our 
own,” and giving better support to places already 
occupied. To which the reply was: “ Whenever 
the Presbyterian Church shall fold its arms and 
call a halt, it will dry up the fountains of its lib- 
erality and sound its own death knell; while on 
. the contrary, the best method of supporting the 
work already in hand is to convince the Church 
that an aggressive movement is being undertaken, 
which means progress.” 

Now what are the results? Rey. H. 8. David- 
son, after laboring only a few months in Oklahoma 
as an evangelist, gathered in Mangum, Greer 
County, about twenty Presbyterians, and organized 
the First Presbyterian Church in all the southern 
section of that great country. Rev. W.E. McIlwain 
entered upon his work in September as superin- 
tendent of the Indian Territory and evangelist, 
where in seven months besides holding meetings 
in various places he settled pastors over seven 
churches and organized six others. His successor, 
Rev. W. T. Matthews, is meeting with great suc- 
cess in every quarter. The opportunity challenges 
the Church! 


60 At Our Own Door 


As the result of this “ Forward Movement,” a 
petition was sent to the next meeting of the Synod 
of Texas for the erection of a new presbytery in 
the Indian Territory, called “The Presbytery of 
Durant,” which petition being granted, the pres- 
bytery met and organized with eight ministers 
and twenty churches. It is remarkable that of 
these eight ministers, every one had entered the 
Territory during the previous twelve months, and 
of the churches more than half had been organized 
in the same period of time. Can any section of 
the Church show better results for the means ex- 
pended? Does the Church ever receive better re- 
sults from the funds expended than in aggressive 
home mission work ? 

5. In carrying out the program of missions the 
Assembly’s work does not ask for itself the whole 
resources of the Church but a wise cooperation of 
the whole Church, and a profitable adjustment of 
funds. In every presbytery and synod there is. 
doubtless enough destitution to demand all of its 
home mission funds in local work. “Tis true, ’tis 
pity ; pity ’tis, ’tis true.” 

Each presbytery and synod must supply i: own 
waste places, and go to these neglected moun- 
taineers and unevangelized suburbs of the city for 
humanity’s sake and for Christ’s sake. 

Yet if there are other localities still more desti- 
tute beyond their bounds, where the population is 
greater and the money expended brings in better 
returns, then must synod or presbytery leave the 
destitute of their own bounds for humanity’s sake 


The Program of Missions 61 


and for Christ’s sake, until the Church lays its 
hands on the more needy and more promising 
fields. Every man making an investment of cap- 
ital wants to place it where it will bring him the 
largest returns. If the aggressive work of the 
General Assembly is doing more, relatively for 
the spread of our beloved Church, let no local nor 
selfish motive hinder us from giving it our largest 
support. Localities in the older synods have 
waited, can still wait, will wait, must wait, till the 
Church lays her hand on the inviting field and 
destitute sections that have never yet been occu- 
pied and possessed by any denomination. 

The Church must give the gospel to these 
great centres of population in the west for her 
own sake. The tide of population rolling west- 
wards is filling all of that section rapidly. All the 
public lands are now being thrown open. Thereis 
no new territory to be opened. The wave of 
population will soon reach the Pacific Ocean, and 
then necessarily roll backwards towards the east, 
and flow into our own wonderful Southland. 
Woe be to the Church if it rolls back on her a 
flood of ungodly men and women! The battle 
ground of this country is the west. Whoever 
organizes the west—Christ or Satan—will largely 
control the United States. The east must evan- 
gelize the west, or else the west will paganize the 
east. It will cost the Church less to evangelize 
the west now than in the future, and she must do 
it for Christ’s sake and for her own sake. 

In pursuing her foreign mission work, the 


62 At Our Own Door 


Church is obeying the “Marching Orders” of 
Christ, in fidelity and loyalty to Him. Is she 
observing “ The Order of the March” in aggressive 
home mission work, according to Christ’s own 
program of missions ? 


III 
CITY MISSIONS 


OnE of the most pathetic incidents in the life of 
Christ occurred during the only triumphal proces- 
sion accorded Him on earth. Some were waving 
palm branches and paving His path to Jerusalem 
with their garments; others were shouting “ Ho- 
sannas,” and singing “Glory to God in the high- 
est”; the whole city was moved at the demon- 
stration, intended as an ovation to the possible 
future King. In the midst of the jubilee, it is 
said, “And when He was come near, He beheld 
the city and wept over it.” If tears could be shed 
in heaven, possibly nothing of earth would sooner 
provoke those tears to-day than the city in its 
degradation, distresses, destitution, sorrow and 
sin. It is in the city that human nature sinks to 
its lowest level. If there is a hell on earth, it is 
the city, sometimes called “The scab on the body 
of humanity,” and designated by Dr. A. J. McKel- 
way as “the plague spot of Nature.” After ex- 
ploring the wilds of Africa, Henry M. Stanley 
sought to fire the hearts of mankind by writing 
“Tn Darkest Africa,” but General Booth paralleled 
it in “Darkest England.” The darker side of the 
dark continent is not more repulsive than the 
darker side of London, Paris, New York or Chi- 

63 


64 At Our Own Door 


cago, and many lesser cities. In the spirit of 
Christ, philanthropists are still weeping over the 
needs, sufferings and sorrows of the cities; philoso- 
phers are weeping over city problems; Christians 
are weeping over the wretchedness, shame and sin 
of the city. 

There is always sorrow in the city. Advancing © 
civilization, progress of science, institutions of 
learning, have not banished from the city its 
woes, nor diminished its shame. “The Twentieth 
Century City ” shows but little change in condi- 
tions, since the Psalmist testified 3,000 years ago: 
“T have seen violence and strife in the city. Day 
and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: | 
mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it. 
Wickedness is in the midst thereof: deceit and 
guile depart not from her streets.” Here extremes 
meet ; ‘ Dives and Lazarus are brought face to face: ” 
“the rich and the poor meet together,” and ap- 
peal equally to the compassion of “The Lord, the 
Maker of both.” The wretched tenement house 
and the squalid hut contain no monopoly of suffer- 
ing. The brown-stone front, and brilliantly il- 
lumined palace have each its hidden skeleton. 

1. It has been said, “The city is the nerve 
centre of our civilization. It is also the storm 
centre.” Population is becoming more and more 
congested in the city, rendering it not simply a 
menace to good government, but a greater problem 
to the Church. A comparative study of statistics 
shows that the growth of the city is abnormal. 
At the dawn of the nineteenth century, only one- 


City Missions 65 


twenty-fifth of the population of our country be- 
longed to the city ; by the middle of the century 
it had increased to one-eighth; whilst “the 
twentieth century city” contains at least one- 
‘third. If we include in the estimate the large 
towns, fully one-half of the people are now con- 
gregated in the city. The increase in the popula- 
tion of the country, during the last century, multi- 
plied itself twelvefold, whilst in the same period the 
city population increased nearly an hundredfold. 
Immigration, which threatens the purity of our 
Anglo-Saxon stock, as well as the morality of our 
citizenship, makes its chief attack on the city. If 
the worst elements of European governments, 
which drift to our shores, could be scattered and 
distributed in the rural districts, their assimilation 
would be easier and less dangerous to the body 
politic; but instead, they swarm into our great 
cities. While only one-third of the population of 
the United States is foreign by birth or parentage, 
eighty per cent. of New York is foreign and 
ninety per cent. of Chicago. 

“Two things, with respect to immigration are 
alarming to American Christians and patriots; its 
magnitude and its quality. Think of a single ship, 
the Bavaria, bringing in one voyage 2,854 steer- 
age passengers, and of a total record, of immi- 
grants for the year ending April, 1903, of 803,272! 
Seventeen states of the Union have each less popu- 
lation. Whereas formerly the influx was almost 
entirely of the Teutonic race, Irish and German, 
now the Slavonic strain preponderates, and the 


66 At Our Own Door 


flood is largely composed of illiterate Italians” 
(Central Presbyterian). 

The Christian Herald startles us in its array of 
statistics: ‘The present population of Chicago is 
over 2,000,000. About ninety per cent. of the 
people are foreign by birth or parentage. Every 
continent, and some of the islands of the earth, 
are represented. Sixty languages are spoken. 
Different. nationalities colonize in different parts 
of the city, until one can visit Bohemia, Poland, 
Italy, and other lands, without leaving the city 
limits. 

“There are more Germans than in any city of 
Germany, except Berlin, and more Poles than in 
any city in Poland. One city missionary visiting 
from house to house, during the afternoon of a 
single week, offered the Gospel to fifteen nation- 
alities. In one section, not two miles square, 
eighteen languages are spoken. Many of these 
people do not understand English. Most of them 
are nominally Romanists, and these things greatly 
increase the difficulty of reaching them with the 
Gospel. But a glance at the city shows how much 
the Gospel is needed. About 6,000 saloons are 
doing business in Chicago. These employ 31,600 
persons, and have a daily income of $316,000. In 
a single saloon, on a certain ordinary Sabbath 
evening, at seven o’clock, there were counted 524 
men. Within the next two hours 480 more en- 
tered, until men were standing six deep around 
the gambling tables. There are 3,000 billiard 
and pool rooms. Houses of impurity abound. In 


City Missions 67 


one ward were counted 312, in which were found 
1,708 inmates. A thousand men are engaged in 
alluring other men into these dens. 

“The religious and moral destitution of the 
masses is startling. Some years ago a section was 
canvassed, and it was found out of 1,280 families 
visited, 1,220 did not possess God’s word, neither 
were they willing to receive it. The canvas of 
another section, revealed 1,140 families with no 
Bible, with 1,823 families neglecting public wor- 
ship, and nearly 2,000 children in no Sunday- 
schools. It is not uncommon to find people who 
never saw a Bible, and do-not know it when shown 
to them. One woman produced on invitation 
what she thought was her Bible: when, on her 
failing to find the Gospel of John, the visitor 
came to her assistance, it was to discover that she 
had Webster’s Dictionary in her hand. ‘ Well,’ 
said she, ‘if that is not a Bible, then we do not 
have one.’ There are said to be twelve Atheistic 
Sunday-schools in operation in the city, the mem- 
bers of which are indoctrinated by means of a 
catechism whose summary states that there is no 
God, no Christ, no Holy Ghost, no heaven, no 
hell, no virtue in Christianity and no integrity in 
its ministers.” 

In addition to immigration, which is swelling 
the size of our cities, Dr. Strong in “The Twentieth 
Century City ” undertakes to account for the in- 
crease of urban population in three ways: (1) 
The application of machinery to agriculture, by 
which one man can now do the work of four men 


68 At Our Own Door 


formerly. The overproduction of farm products 
drives the other three men out of the agricultural 
business and inevitably to the city. (2) The sub- 
stitution of mechanical for muscular power, and 
its application to manufacturers. The world’s 
work was formerly done by muscle, and the word 
“manufacture” meant something made by hand. 
The word has lost its meaning. The springing up 
of factories in the city to produce agricultural im- 
plements and a thousand other things, created a 
demand for mechanical labor, and attracted to the 
city laborers, who were being driven from the 
farm. (3) The increase of railroad facilities, 
which renders it easy to transport population from 
country to city, and easy to transport food, mak- 
ing it possible to feed millions at any one point, 
without danger of famine. 

It would be easy to enumerate other causes. 
The concentration of wealth in the city means as 
well the concentration of business. The city does 
not produce, but it does manufacture the products 
of a thousand communities. It becomes the depot 
for accumulating, and then for redistribution of 
the surplus and the manufactured product. This 
makes the city a magnate for attracting to itself 
the executive ability of the whole country. The 
development of business ability lands one in the 
city as one effect of the law of supply and demand. 

Then, the city has its educational and social ad- 
vantages. The high character of the graded 
school system, the advantage of technological in- 
stitutions and great universities compel many fam- 


City Missions 69 


ilies to locate in cities, whilst the social attractions 
are equally potent. In addition to all other con- 
siderations, there is always the vast army of the 
unemployed, always moving on the city, in the 
hope of finding work, or, more frequently, an 
easier, and comparatively idle, life. Sooner or 
later, this vast horde finds its way to, and its level 
in, the slums. 

Philanthropists have thought to relieve the con- 
gestion of the city by transporting many of the 
families of overcrowded suburbs and slums to the 
unoccupied lands of the country. But the remedy 
must prove superficial since the idle life of cities, 
being more to their taste, than hard agricultural 
conditions, they will soon give up the struggle and 
drift back again. Instead of relief to the over- 
crowded city, the probability is, that the exhaus- 
tion of the public lands will soon close the safety 
valve in that direction, and the congestion is likely 
to become more pronounced. 

2. Overcrowding in the city breeds suffering. 
Tenement houses, compared with which the aver- 
age prison is a palace, swarm with wretched 
humanity. Damp cellars and dark attics, where a 
ray of sunshine seldom strays, are infested with 
what, we hesitate to call, “ humanvermin.” Large 
families live, eat and sleep in one room in such 
condition as to render the decencies of life impos- 
sible. Dr. Strong quotes from, “The Bitter Cry 
of Outcast London”: “Few who will read these 
pages have any conception of what these pesti- 
lential human rookeries are, where tens of thou- 


70 At Our Own Door 


sands are crowded together amidst horrors which 
call to mind what we have heard of the middle 
passages of the slave ships. To get into them, 
you have to penetrate courts, reeking with poison- 
ous and malodorous gases, arising from accumula- 
tions of sewerage and refuse scattered in all direc- 
tions, and often flowing beneath your feet ; courts, 
many of which the sun never penetrates, which are 
never visited by a breath of fresh air. You have 
to ascend rotten staircases, grope your way along 
dark and filthy passages, swarming with vermin. 
Then if you are not driven back by the intolerable 
stench, you may gain admittance to these dens in 
which these thousands of beings herd together. 
Eight feet square! That is about the average size 
of very many of these rooms. Walls and ceiling 
are black with secretions of filth, which has gath- 
ered upon them through long years of neglect. 
It is exuding through cracks in the boards; it’s 
every where ! 

“Every room in these rotten and reeking tene- 
ments houses a family, often two. In one cellar, a 
sanitary inspector reports finding a father, mother, 
three children, and four pigs! . . . Hereare 
seven people living in one underground kitchen and 
a little dead child lying in the same room. Else- 
where there is a poor widow, her three children, 
and a child who had been dead thirteen days. 
Her husband, who was a cab man, had shortly 
before committed suicide. . . . In another 
apartment, nine brothers and sisters, from twenty- 
nine years of age downward, live, eat, and sleep 


City Missions 71 


together. Here is a mother, who turns her chil- 
dren in the streets in the early evening, because 
she lets her room for immoral purposes until long 
after midnight, when the poor little wretches 
creep back again, if they have not found some 
miserable shelter elsewhere. Where there are 
beds, they are simply heaps of dirty rags, shay- 
ings, or straw: but for the most part, these 
miserable beings find rest only upon the filthy 
boards. ._. . There are men and women who 
lie and die day by day, in their single wretched 
room, sharing all the family troubles, enduring 
the hunger and the cold, and waiting, without 
hope, without a single ray of comfort, until God 
curtains their staring eyes with the merciful film 
of death.” The comment of Dr. Strong is just: 
“ As the greatest wickedness in the world is to be 
found, not among the cannibals of some far off 
coast, but in Christian land, where the light of 
truth is diffused and rejected, so the uttermost 
depth of wretchedness exists not among savages, 
who have few wants, but in the great cities, 
where in the presence of plenty and of every 
luxury men starve.” The Health Department 
of New York, made a canvas in 1888 of the 
city, which revealed the fact that there were 
32,390 tenement houses, occupied by 237,972 
. families, and 1,093,701 souls! As Hazael was 
startled into abhorrence at the revelation of his 
future self, exclaiming: “Is thy servant a dog, 
that he should do this thing?” so Baltimore, 
Richmond, Atlanta, Louisville, Memphis and New 


72 At Our Own Door 


Orleans may see and abhor in London and New 
York their own awful future! 

3. This congestion in the city multiplies 
wickedness, by increasing the facilities and oppor- 
tunities for crime. Association is universally 
recognized as a tremendous power for good; but 
it is a still greater power for evil. The advan- 
tages of city life are more than offset by its 
terrors. Brilliantly illuminated saloons, seductive 
gambling clubs, houses of ill fame, bucket shops 
and euchre parties, etc., constitute a variety of 
mantraps, alluring their thousands of the better 
class to ruin; whilst low dives and nameless dens 
of infamy are the antechamber to hell for tens of 
thousands of the lower classes. “ Philadelphia 
and Pittsburg are exceptionally good cities, but in 
Philadelphia there are seven and a half times as 
much crime to a given population, and in Pitts- 
burg and Allegheny City nearly nine times as 
much, as in the average rural county of Pennsyl- 
vania. . . . As the saloon sustains important 
relation to the law, it desires to control both those 
who make the laws and those whose duty it is to 
enforce them. It has already become a political 
institution of power. Politicians are careful not to 
antagonize it. Its political support or opposition 
is apt to be decisive; for saloon keepers are liquor 
men first, and Democrats or Republicans after- 
wards. When this, their craft, therefore, by 
which they have their wealth, is in danger, it is 
easy for them to drop their political differences, 
and by uniting hold the balance of power, and 


City Missions 73 


wield it in the interests of their business. An 
astute politician in New York, reputed to be a 
total abstainer and a church member, said he 
would rather have the support of the saloons 
than the churches. . . . The rottenest politics 
on earth are city politics. The most corrupt 
officer that is elevated to power ordinarily is the 
city official. The larger the city the more apt is 
it to be ruled by a boss, ward politicians and the 
saloon ” (Twentieth Century City). 

The spirit of commercialism makes residence in 
the city as great a peril to moral health as con- 
tagion is to physical health. Business competi- 
tion is a terrible strain on the man who is com- 
pelled to keep abreast with his unscrupulous 
competitor. The mad rush for wealth is evident 
not only in legitimate trade but in the wildest 
speculation, in stocks, grain, and cotton futures. 
Great corporations are grinding their employees 
and lading them as beasts of burden, till they 
practically allow no Sabbath of rest, from the 
terrible treadmill of life. It is said that “ Society 
is rotten at both ends.” If the lowest strata is 
crushed by poverty and vice, many of the upper 
classes are so occupied with fashionable society 
clubs, card parties, balls, theatres, etc., as to leave 
no heart and taste for any religion, except the 
formal, fashionable, sentimental, asthetic type, 
which does not rudely shock their taste, seriously 
interfere with their sins, nor require any self- 
denial of their questionable pleasures and amuse- 
ments. On the other hand, the low vaudeville 


74 At Our Own Door 


shows, immoral performances, Sunday baseball, 
and so-called religious concerts, given in the in- 
terest of the working people, are demoralizing and 
excluding the Gospel from the masses of the peo- 
ple. But it is not the province of this chapter to 
enter into any of the details of city life, where 
humanity festers and rots, being content to give 
merely a passing glance at the darker side of the 
problem. 

4, This congestion makes the city a constant 
menace to itself, to society and to the nation. It 
has been said that our enemies were once far away 
in the great lawless west ; but now, they camp in 
solid city wards; they are entrenched behind the 
endless rows of tenement houses. Socialism, in the 
guise of love for the working classes, is sowing the 
seed of its spurious gospel in sympathetic soil, 
ready to germinate as in a hot bed, showing its 
fruitage in disastrous “strikes,” and in the mutter- 
ings of irresponsible mobs, shaking their threaten- 
ing fists in the direction of property and hurling 
their curses at the church. “Saltpetre, sulphur 
and charcoal, are each one non-explosive, but 
brought together, they make gunpowder. Neither 
ignorance nor vice is revolutionary when quite 
comfortable, nor is wretchedness, when controlled 
by intelligence and conscience. But ignorance, 
vice and wretchedness combined, constitute social 
dynamite, of which the city slum is a magazine, 
awaiting only a casual spark to burst into terrific 
destruction. . . . Most of our great cities have 
at some time been in the hands of a mob. In the 


City Missions AiG 


summer of 1892, within a few days of each other, 
New York, Pennsylvania and Tennessee ordered 
out their militia, and Idaho called on the United 
States government for troops to suppress labor 
riots. More recent instances are fresh in mind. 
That is not self-government, but government by 
military force. There is peril when the Statue of 
Liberty is compelled to lean on the point of a bayo- 
net for support. Sooner or later it will pierce her 
hand. The city, ina position to dictate to state and 
nation, and yet incapable of self-government, is like 
Nero on the throne” (Twentieth Century City). 

“The president of the Mormon Church casts 60,- 
000 votes. The Jesuits, it is said, are all under 
command of one man in Washington. The Roman 
Catholic vote is more or less perfectly controlled 
by the priests. That means that the pope can dic- 
tate 100,000 of votes in the United States. ; 
The result of a national election may depend on 
a single State ; the vote of the State may depend 
on a single city ; the vote of that city may depend 
on a boss, or a capitalist or a corporation ; or the 
election may be decided and the policy of the gov- 
ernment may be reversed, by the Socialist or 
liquor, or Roman Catholic, or immigrant vote. It 
matters not by what name we call this man who 
wields this centralized power—whether king, czar, 
pope, president, capitalist, or boss. Just so far as 
it is absolute and irresponsible, it is dangerous ” 
(Our Country). 

In the language of James Freeman Clark: “A 
time comes in the downfall and corruption of com- 


76 At Our Own Door 


munities, when good men struggle ineffectually 
against the tendencies of ruin. Hannibal could 
not save Carthage; Marcus Antoninus could not 
save the Roman Empire; Demosthenes could not 
save Greece, and Jesus Christ Himself could not 
save Jerusalem from decay and destruction.” 

Are the dangerous elements netted together ina 
web of evil, also drawing their lines closer around 
our Anglo-Saxon civilization? Will history repeat 
itself ? 

“When some commercial crisis has closed fac- 
tories by the thousands, and wage-workers have 
been thrown out of employment by the million ; 
when the public lands, which hitherto at such 
times have afforded relief, are all exhausted ; when 
our urban population has been multiplied several 
fold, and our Cincinnatis have become Chicagos, 
our Chicagos New Yorks, and our New Yorks 
Londons; when class antipathies are deepened; 
when socialistic organizations, armed and drilled, 
are in every city, and the ignorant, vicious power 
of crowded population, has fully found itself ; when 
the corruption of city governments has grown 
apace; when crops fail, or some gigantic ‘ corner’ 
doubles the price of bread ; with starvation in the 
home; with idle workmen gathered, sullen and 
desperate, in the saloons ; with unprotected wealth 
at hand ; with the tremendous forces of chemistry 
within easy reach ; then, with the opportunity, the 
means, the fit agents, the motive, the temptation to 
destroy, all brought into evil conjunction, THEN, 
will come the real test of our institutions, then will 


City Missions 77 


appear whether we are capable of self-government ” 
(Our Country). 

These quotations are given in order that the evil 
which exists and the perils which confront may be 
portrayed mainly in the language of others. Now, 
arises the question, Is there any remedy ? If so, 
what? Without any hesitation it may be stated 
that the remedy is not radical enough, which is 
trying to “purify politics” by means of “ good 
government clubs,” by education of the masses, by 
moral reform, by prohibition crusades, or by social- 
istic schemes. The very best of these is “healing 
but slightly the hurt of the daughter of my people.” 
All human means are foredestined to fail. Zhe 
divine remedy is the gospel. The only power that 
can save the city is the power that can save the 
soul; it is the power of Jesus Christ. If moral 
reformation will not save a soul, neither will it re- 
deem the city. Two men were walking in the 
slums of a great city. The skeptic said to the 
Christian: “ Here at least, you must admit that 
the religion of Jesus Christ has failed.” “By no 
means,” replied the other, “it has never been tried.” 
If Christ fails, it is the height of presumption, the 
supremest human conceit, to attempt the quackery 
of human philosophy. The church has experi- 
mented with city missions. The most ardent ad- 
vocate could scarcely claim brilliant success ; but 
has the gospel failed ? 

5. This raises the problem of city missions. 
Beyond all question, it is the greatest problem 
which taxes the thought and exercises the heart of 


78 At Our Own Door 


the church to-day. The man who finds the solu- 
tion, will win immortality, as the greatest of 
human benefactors. The Negro Problem, The 
Eastern Question, the profoundest Enigma, which 
taxes the mind of political economists are insig- 
nificant in comparison. They concern the welfare 
of the kingdoms of this world. The Christian 
philosopher, who solves the problem of city mis- 
sions, will serve the kingdom of heaven. Whilst 
denying the failure of the Gospel, we are none the 
less ready to admit the failure to a large extent of 
the Church. It is said that the masses are drift- 
ing away fromtheChurch. Itisamistake. They 
are not drifting; they have already drifted! 
They are already beyond reach, humanly speak- 
ing. People in the city nearest the church, are 
often farthest from Christ. In spite of the fact 
that all denominations are building up great 
churches in the city, thoroughly alive seemingly 
to the wants of humanity, and the interests of the 
kingdom of Christ, it yet remains an awful fact 
which we cannot ignore, that the great masses 
have drifted away, and are dying without Christ, 
under the very shadow of the Church. Is it not 
equally true—perhaps the explanation of it all— 
that the Church has drifted away from the 
masses? To what extent has the church also 
drifted away from Christ? ‘“ Back to Christ,” as 
a theology may be a delusion; but “ Back to 
Christ ” as a model of life and character, may be a 
necessity. Is there any significance in the fact 
that an audience of these “ drifted masses ” will 


City Missions 79 


sometimes cheer the name of Christ and hiss the 
Church? Many a church to-day, is seeking mem- 
bers, chiefly to save itself and not so much to save 
the souls. If the Church has not drifted away 
from the people, why is it drifting away from 
“down town,” where the people multiply in ever 
increasing numbers ? 

“Tn the fourth and seventh wards of New York 
City, there are 70,000 people, and seven Protestant 
churches and chapels, or one place of worship to 
every ten thousand of the population. In the 
tenth ward there is a population of 47,000 and two 
churches and chapels. South of 14th Street, there 
was in 1880 a population of 541,726, for whom 
there were 109 Protestant churches and missions, or 
about one to every 5,000 souls. In 1890 according 
to the police census, there was in the same quar- 
ter a population of 596,878, an increase of 50,000, 
while of churches and missions there was an in- 
crease of one. Indeed, the Christian force is not 
so large now as it was ten or even twenty years ago, 
because churches have moved out and been re- 
placed by missions. It was stated by Dr. Schauffler 
in 1888, that during the preceding twenty years, 
nearly 200,000 people had moved in below 14th 
Street, and seventeen Protestant churches had 
moved out. One Jewish Synagogue and two 
Roman Catholic Churches had been added. So 
that counting churches of every kind, there were 
fourteen less than there were twenty years before, 
notwithstanding the great increase of population ” 
(Our Country). 


80 At Our Own Door 


City missions are the most difficult of all work. 
“Said a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, in the early days of organized home mis- 
sionary effort by its women, ‘ You have two fields 
before you—the frontiers and the cities. The lat- 
ter is the largest and most important, and will 
eventually claim the largest share of the attention 
of your societies. But you cannot touch cities 
with systematic effort until you have a strong or- 
ganization. You must begin with the frontiers.’ ” 

It has been said that city missions have had 
money enough expended on them to convert the 
world, if it had been wisely distributed. More 
money can be raised for city work than for 
any other cause. The rich, benevolent people of 
our city churches, see the needs of the slums, and are 
willing to give of their abundance for the needy, 
whom alas! their money can seldom reach. Mul- 
titudes will give money. They need to give some- 
thing more valuable than this! More good, ear- 
nest, consecrated men have broken their very 
hearts on city missions than perhaps over any 
other matter. Numbers of young ministers 
“jump at the suggestion” of a city mission, 
imagining they will soon be pastor of a city 
church, with all the advantages such a position 
brings. Not knowing the difficulties, and not 
seeking always the welfare of souls, as their sole 
aim, but actuated by a desire to “build up a 
church ” for their own advancement, they soon be- 
come discouraged, break their hearts over the 
failure of the mission and the failure of their 


City Missions 81 


ministry and are too ready to “make a change” 
for something easier and “more promising.” 
Who can blame them? They never undertook 
it with the expectation of sacrificing their whole 
life to an idea, but rather as a stepping stone to 
something higher. Many city missions thus fail, 
because the promoters are compelled to change the 
minister so frequently and carry on the work so 
irregularly. 

City missions fail also because they do not de- 
velop as rapidly as the promoters had hoped, and 
the mission is prematurely abandoned, “ because it 
does not pay.” The church which undertakes a 
mission must do it for Christ’s sake and be willing 
to receive no returns, if need be. ‘“ A pawn broker 
with a heart chipped out of flint would cheerfully 
give on the same inviting terms—one dollar for 
the return of a thousand. To give in order to get, 
is not giving at all; it is only investing. That is 
not Christianity, but business as now conducted. 
Oh, when shall we get rid of this commercialism 
in religion? Love is not commercial; it calcu- 
lates no returns. It breaks the alabaster box of 
self-concern and pours out the precious ointment 
of devotion without measure and without price” 
(Twentieth Century City). 

If the desperate wickedness of the city has been 
portrayed, neither has there been any effort made 
to conceal the difficulties and discouragements 
awaiting those who enter the uninviting field of 
city missions. Correct diagnosis is essential be- 
fore undertaking to apply remedies. Already the 


82 At Our Own Door 


remedy for the slums, as well as the brown-stone 
fronts, has been stated as the Gospel. But the 
practical question is, How to bring the gospel in 
contact with the masses? By all odds, the most 
widely employed means has been the mission Sab- 
bath-school. These have done a noble work for 
Christ and humanity. Many have developed 
under favorable circumstances into self-supporting 
churches. Many more have produced results 
which can be estimated only in the great here- 
after. Failures from a human standpoint are 
often successes from the divine. “ The Lord seeth 
not as man seeth.” Real failure is sometimes due 
to the fact that the workers do not live among 
their protégés, and fail to enlist assistant laborers 
in the vicinity. Often the fruit cultivated so as- 
siduously is not gathered into any permanent fold, 
and is practically lost to the church. Even in the 
face of these disadvantages, we bid Godspeed to 
all such Sabbath-school workers. Eternity alone 
can answer the question, “ What shall the harvest 
be?” 

Next to Sabbath-school, stands “ The Mission,” 
whether “Chapel” or infant church. Success 
or failure is often determined by location. If 
in a section that develops into good homes, the 
probability of success is assured. Failure is often 
due to the fact that Christian workers will pat- 
ronize the “ mission” and hold their membership 
in an up-town church. The better classes living in 
a stone’s throw of the chapel will take the street 
cars for a “First” church, where they can hear 


City Missions 83 


up-to-date sermons, and good choirs and enjoy 
social advantages. Mission churches are offended 
at the patronage of such Christians, and the 
masses find to their chagrin that the distinctions 
of society are rigidly enforced in church circles, 
and so become prejudiced against the church and 
let the “ mission ” severely alone. Aboveall other — 
considerations, the minister who undertakes mis- 
sion work, ought not to be actuated by a desire to 
train himself for some higher position. Many men 
fail because they are giving themselves to “study” 
and visiting the people only in a professional way. 
Men “ volunteer” for foreign missions, and expect 
to make it a life-work. Who volunteers for city 
mission work, with the expectation of “ enlisting 
for the war”? Men in estimating the attractions 
of Christ for sinners, quote as an explanation, 
“ This man receiveth sinners ;” but they omit and 
overlook the most important additional clause, 
“ And eateth with them.” Men like Jerry Mc- 
Auley and Hadley, who will enter into the social 
life of the masses and sacrifice their whole life to 
such high purpose will find, that “ He that loseth 
his life for My sake (by voluntary exile in the 
slums) will find it ” (in the highest sphere of use- 
fulness). The slums can only be reached in the 
spirit of Christ. Not many such experiments have 
been made. 

However questionable an Institutional Church 
may be, in some respects and in some quarters, 
may it not be possible, that it may be the remedy 
for the slums; provided always that the Institu- 


84 At Our Own Door 


tional features are subservient to and not substi- 
tuted for, the Gospel. Its “ organized charities,” 
“ sheltering arms,” “ rescue work,” “ door of hope,” 
“trained nurses for the sick,” “night schools,” 
“kindergarten,” etc., ought not to be ends in them- 
selves but means always to the one end of bring- 
ing the Gospel to bear on heart and conscience and 
life. Many illustrations of the success of such ef- 
forts have been published. One notable instance 
stands out prominently in Atlanta, The Baptist 
Tabernacle of Dr. L. G. Broughton. 

In 1899, Dr. Broughton conceived the idea of 
establishing a church which would touch humanity 
at every point, ministering unto the needs of men 
foursquare, physical, mental, moral and spiritual. 
Beginning with about 300 communicants it has 
grown in less than five years to over 1,500. Com- 
posed almost exclusively of poor people, they raise 
for current expenses, annually, an enormous sum. 
Recently, to enlarge their plant, they raised on 
one Sabbath $15,000. The Institutional features 
have grown with the growth of the church. Some 
of the special features are as follows: An in- 
firmary for the sick ; a home for helpless women ; 
a training school for Christian nurses ; a school in 
domestic science ; a Christian dormitory for young 
women ; seven missions and night schools ; a Sab- 
bath-school with ordinary classes and special fea- 
tures in the way of primary department, young 
men’s class and society, young woman’s, mothers’ 
class, etc. ; a lecture course, including many of the 
most prominent lecturers of the country; a Bible 


City Missions 85 


conference modelled after Northfield taught by 
such men as Campbell Morgan, etc. 

The Tabernacle has a seating capacity of 3,500 
and is ordinarily filled and often packed at the 
regular Sabbath services. As all roads lead to 
Rome and all Scriptures to Christ; so, as far as 
the writer has been able to judge, all these Insti- 
tutional features are made subservient to the great 
object of preaching “ Christ and Him Crucified.” 

It may be said his success is due to sensational 
methods. That would only partially account for 
the results. The writer among others supplied 
the Tabernacle during the absence of Dr. Brough- 
ton in Europe in the spring of 1903. With 
no “sensational Broughton” to draw, at night in 
addition to a vast auditorium packed, there were 
more people in the gallery than the average At- 
lanta preacher has in his audience. 

The time is not far distant when the Church is 
destined to awake to the great need of this par- 
ticular home field. She has heard, and has nobly 
responded to, the Macedonian cry of countless 
heathen on foreign shores. Does she hear the 
dumb appeal of “the heathen nearer,” the more 
pitiable and pathetic, because dumb? Thank 
God the day is not far distant. ‘The morning 
light is breaking,” not simply in China and Africa 
but in the slums of London, New York and Chi- 
cago. The Salvation Army was the first ray of 
hope to a despairing cry, “ Watchmen, what of the 
night ?” 

“The distinct office of organized home missions 


86 At Our Own Door 


is to plant churches ; and where are churches more 
in demand than in the reeking city slums? Is it 
asked ‘ Where are members to be found?’ They 
can be imported. Our social settlements are made 
up of consecrated men and women, who import 
the home, in their own persons, into the very cen- 
tres of slumdom. Are there none to carry the 
Church? ‘But how are such churches to be 
equipped and supported?’ As hospitals are built, 
as asylums are supported, as libraries are equipped, 
as colleges are endowed. Shall millions be poured 
out for the suffering bodies and darkened minds 
of the poor and unprivileged, and must the Church, 
with its diviner gifts of healing, be denied for the 
want of a few thousand dollars ? 

“The author makes no claim to prophetic gifts, 
but he belzeves that organized home missions will 
not always turn a deaf ear to the bitter cry of the 
city, and pass by on the other side. The boast 
has been that for a hundred years it has followed 
the people; then it must seek them within the 
city gates. To do so will be the truest economy 
as well as the highest strategy. The wise general 
masses his army where the enemy is densest” 
(Leavening the Nation). 

Let the Church begin to gird herself for a tre- 
mendous and thoroughly organized effort. Let 
the best young men “volunteer” for a living 
death to all the luxuries and social advantages 
among men, for a work more difficult, and in con- 
sequence more heroic and glorious, than even the 
foreign field. Let the ancient order of “ Deacon- 


City Missions 87 


ess” be revived in the class of devoted women, 
who are willing to surrender everything else for 
the service of Christ, in Bible readings, in the 
homes of the poor, distributing alms, nursing the 
sick, “helpers” in the same sense as those com- 
mended by Paul as laboring with him in the gos- 
pel. The time for experiments has passed, the 
Church must get down to the business of her great 
mission. 

Now, let us consider why other denominations 
are frequently more successful than Presbyterians 
in city mission work. 

(a) Presbyterians do not readily degenerate into 
such material as compose the slums. The writer 
has labored in the slums, alms houses, prisons, etc., 
and has seldom found any Presbyterians among 
such as abound in those places. Consequently, 
other denominations find more of their material 
in the slums, and more people in sympathy with 
their system. 

(6) If this is at all gratifying to our denomina- 
tional pride, a second consideration will counterbal- 
ance it and take all of the pride out of us. Presby- 
terians have neglected the country till other denomi- 
nations have practically taken it ; and so the streams 
which flow into the city are not Presbyterian 
streams. These make the great city churches among 
the better classes and the mission churches among 
the poor; therefore others build up city missions, 
where we fail. In order to keep pure the water 
of the city, supplied by the great Croton Aque- 
duct, it is necessary to give strict sanitary inspec- 


88 At Our Own Door 


tion to the small streams which feed it forty miles 
away. If Presbyterians expect to evangelize 
properly the city, they must begin on the country, 
which is furnishing the streams flowing into the 
city. 

(c) Other denominations adopt sensational 
methods which appeal often to one’s lower nature 
and frequently are content to entertain the people 
in order to collect a crowd, whilst Presbyterians 
are charged sometimes with being more concerned 
about “orthodoxy” and “right methods” than 
“reaching the masses.” Is this testimony true ? 
If so, let a commendable zeal atone for the past. 

If the Church would take into consideration the 
value of the time factor as an element in saving 
the cities, she must begin now on Birmingham, 
Atlanta, Dallas, etc., before they become the New 
Yorks and Chicagos of the South. Money and 
effort spent now will save greater expenditures in 
the future. “One man now is worth a hundred 
fifty years hence. One dollar is worth a thousand 
then. Now, is the nick of time.” The time to 
save these younger cities is before they are lost! 

If every great city to-day in its wickedness is a 
veritable hell on earth, yet purified and trans- 
formed, the city is a type of heaven, “the city 
which hath foundations, whose builder and maker 
is God,” “the city of the living God, the heavenly 
Jerusalem.” “ And the twelve gates were twelve 
pearls ; and the streets of the city were pure gold, 
as it were transparent glass.” . . . “And the 
city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon 


City Missions 89 


to shine in it; for the glory of God did 7s ell 
it, and the Banh is the light thereof. : 
And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day ; : 
for there shall be no night there.” 


IV 
MOUNTAINEERS 


(As the Rocky Mountains stretch across our 
western country, from extreme north to south, 
parallel with the Pacific, so the east has the 
Appalachian range that parallels the Atlantic. 
Its southern extremity expands into the Blue 
Ridge and Cumberland Mountains, forming a 
unique section, embracing large parts of West 
Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina 
and Georgia, which is known as “ The Land of the 
Sky.” Its picturesque scenery and marvellous 
beauty entitle it to the name by which it is often 
designated, “The Switzerland of America.” ) Its 
bracing climate, pure crystal streams, mineral 
waters and famous health resorts annually attract 
multitudes of tourists from every section of our 
country. Its hills are rich in minerals and rare 
stones, which will-at some time in the future 
possibly greatly enrich multitudes whose only 
worldly possessions at present are barren hills and 
rugged cliffs. More than forty of its mountain 
peaks reach an elevation of 6,000 feet, whilst 
Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, supposed to be 
the highest east of the Mississippi, lifts its head 
7,000 feet above the level of the sea. 

“The highest perpendicular face east of the 

go 


Mountaineers gl 


Mississippi is to be found on Whiteside Moun- 
tain, where is a wall two miles in length with a 
sheer drop of 1,800 feet. Precipices hundreds of 
feet deep are not uncommon. As we stand on the 
edge of one of these precipices, just above the 
rocky cavern 1,000 feet below us, the mighty 
forest trees in the valley appear as mere bushes, 
the valley extends for miles to one side; in front 
hill rises above hill, range after range, peer up be- 
hind one another, mountain rises above mountain, 
and the landscape stretches out in awful majesty 
for scores of miles, until it fades away in a misty 
horizon. The solemn silence that prevails empha- 
sizes the grandeur of the scene.” 

/ The whole mountain region is estimated at 500 
miles long and 300 miles wide, and contains a 
population a little in excess of 2,000,000 of souls. 
k In North Georgia, where this section terminates, 
there is one mountain isolated and separated from 
its fellows and for this reason called “ Lost Moun- 
tain.” As an allegory, it may aptly represent the 
people of the mountain regions. Separated and 
isolated from the mass they are the lost tribe of 
America, whom Walter A. Page calls “ The For- 
gotten Man.” One hundred years ago, the moun- 
taineer retreated to the hill country, whilst 
advancing civilization passed him by in its onward 
march. About the time he lost himself in the 
mountains, railroads began to penetrate forests 
and cross the plains; steamboats began to ply 
rivers and lakes. The mountaineer is ignorant of 
their existence. The telegraph brought all the 


g2 At Our Own Door 


rest of the world in close contact. The moun- 
taineer was excluded from the universal bond. 
The nineteenth century exceeds all past ages in its 
discoveries and went forward by leaps and bounds 
in advancing civilization. For the mountaineer, 
the world has stood absolutely still. “The sub- 
merged tenth” in our cities is not more com- 
pletely buried in its living grave of the slums 
than our “Highlanders” lost among the moun- 
tains 2,000,000 strong. The world which had for- 
gotten its lost brother-man, is beginning now to 
think of the “one out on the hills away, far off 
from the gates of gold.” The search is now on 
by philanthropists and churchmen, and soon may 
the time come 


_‘ When all through the mountains thunder riven, 
And up from the rocky steep, 
There will rise the glad shout to the gate of heaven, 
‘Rejoice, for I have found my sheep,’ 5 


/ Who are they and whence came they? The 
historian traces their ancestry back to Antrim and 
Ulster in North Ireland; and yet they are not 
natives of Ireland. By reason of their Romish 
sympathies in the great English struggle for free- 
dom and Protestantism, the Earls of Tyrone and 
Tyrconnel forfeited their great landed estates in all 
that region, where Belfast now towers in her 
morality and Christianity above Dublin and Cork.- 
These forfeited lands were settled by colonists 
from Scotland, and are now known in history as 
Scotch-Irish. All the world knows their proud 


Mountaineers 93 


record and great moral influence among men. 
Books have been written to commemorate their 
influence in the making of this great American Re- 
public, and of the Presbyterian Church in these 
United States. These streams of Scotch-Irish 
flowed in chiefly through the port at Philadelphia, 
driven from home by the Test oath, which re- 
quired every one to subscribe to English prelacy. 
James Anthony Froude says: “In the two years 
which followed the Antrim election, 30,000 left 
Ulster for a land, where there was no legal 
robbery, and where those who sowed the seed 
could reap the harvest.” By this means, Pennsyl- 
vania and Virginia acquired some of the best class 
of colonists that ever emigrated to a new country. 
These streams continued to flow westward and 
southward till they had preempted for themselves 
and their posterity the mountains of Virginia, 
Kentucky and Tennessee. Undaunted by the 
hardships of life, environed by trackless forests 
and treacherous savages, they pushed on into the 
very heart of the wilderness, to carve out for 
themselves a home of their own making, under 
conditions of their own choosing. / Said President 
Roosevelt recently: “They were the first and 
last set of immigrants to do this. All others 
merely followed in the wake of their predecessors. 
But indeed they were fitted from the very start 
to be Americans; they were kinsfolks of the 
Covenanters ; they deemed it a religious duty to 
interpret their own Bibles, and held for a divine 
right the election of their clergy. For genera- 


94 At Our Own Door 


tions their whole ecclesiastic and scholastic sys- 
tems had been fundamentally democratic. /In the 
hard life of the frontier they lost much of their 
religion, and they had but scant opportunities to 
give their children the schooling in which they be- 
lieved; but what schoolhouses and meeting-houses 
there were on the frontier, were theirs. The 
Creed of the backwoodsman, who had a creed at 
all, was Presbyterianj for the Episcopacy of the 
tide water lands obtained no fasthold in the 
mountains to the north, and the Baptists were 
just beginning in the west when the Revolution 
broke out.” 

To this Scotch-Irish contingent, is largely due 
American liberty and independence. The Mech- 
lenburg declaration was drafted by these Scotch- 
Trish Presbyterians more than a year (May 
20, 1774) before the American Declaration which 
was modelled by Thomas Jefferson after Mechlen- 
burg. The section which gave birth to this Scotch- 
Irish declaration was known and dreaded by the 
British as “the hornet’s nest.” Thomas Watson, 
the new and brilliant historian of the South, ar- 
gues adroitly and forcibly that the battle of King’s 
Mountain, fought by these same Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterians, was the decisive battle of the 
Revolution. 

/ Their descendants still occupy their mountain 
home, and like the gulf stream, a distinct river in 
the midst of the sea, these Highlanders have kept 
themselves aloof from the rest of the country, a 
distinct race of people. Immigration flowing in 


Mountaineers 95 


from all nationalities has corrupted the purity of 
our Anglo-Saxon stock, but immigration has never 
touched the life of the mountaineer. These iso- 
lated mountaineers are the best Anglo-Saxon stock, 
of the blood and tradition of heroes, “the only 
portion of our population that retains pure and un- 
defiled the Americanism of Colonial times.” At 
the present time they are divided into two sepa- 
rate classes as distinct from each other as they are 
from Americans. The higher type occupy the 
fertile valleys along the banks of beautiful streams 
and broad rivers. These are the intelligent, culti- 
vated and educated people who will compare fa- 
vorably with any section of the world. Abraham 
Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Zeb. Vance are 
often classified among mountaineers as indicating 
the possibility of our mountain boys, but they 
were not typical mountaineers. They are but 
specimens of a large class who have risen to emi- 
nence from the mountain region. The typical 
mountaineer occupies his rude cabin on mountain- 
side or sequestered cove without associations with 
the outside world, with no advantages of learning 
and no opportunities of improvement, without 
ambition in life, leading an aimless, careless, thrift- 
less existence, in attainments and character on a 
level with the cracker of the backwoods, and the 
factory element of towns. 

His home is a one-room log hut, fifteen by 
twenty feet, with a door and no windows. His 
family is usually large but accommodates itself to 
circumstances, living, cooking, eating, sleeping in 


96 At Our Own Door 


this room which serves as kitchen, parlor and bed- 
room. Extreme poverty is manifested everywhere, 
due to hard conditions, barren soil and innate lazi- 
ness. The family wants are but few and their 
taste simple. They literally “take no thought for 
the morrow ”—or anything else. Their garments 
are scarce in number and coarse in fabric, the 
product of theirown rude looms. Their furniture, 
consisting of stools, chairs, table and bed, is 
carved out of the forest by their rude implements. 
They cultivate no land except small patches of 
corn and raise ordinarily fine apples from their 
small orchards. If they could produce larger 
crops, they would be confronted by the further 
difficulty of inaccessible markets. They have no 
means of transportation, except the ox-cart/ By 
reason of these hard conditions, they justify them- 
selves in illicit distilling, which necessitates a large 
force of revenue officers for raiding these stills, 
and breaking up their miserable means of turning 
their corn and apples into a little cash. These 
mountain “ moonshiners ” and the government are 
always at war. A revenue officer’s life is not as 
safe among them as a wild beast ; and they shoot 
one with as little compunction of conscience as the 
other. They pride themselves upon their honesty, 
locks and bars having no place among them; but 
they have but little regard for the marriage tie, 
and illegitimacy is not considered a special dis- 
grace. Family feuds are a legacy from sire to 
son, and blood is the only atonement for blood. 
“Bloody Breathitt” County, Kentucky, presents 


Mountaineers 97 


the world with the spectacle, at this writing, of 
soldiers guarding a witness, while he gives his 
testimony ; and the feuds of the Hatfields and the 
McCoys have lasted more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury, resulting in dozens of murders, and have now 
attained a national reputation. 

Rev. E. Mac Davis, who boasts of being “ one 
of them” writes graphically and interestingly of 
these people: “There has taken place in the re- 
mote mountains of the South what takes place in 
remote mountains everywhere, always—a dam- 
ming up of the stream of humanity and the gath- 
ering of that stream into pools. These pools, be- 
cause they have no outlet, give off their freshness 
and precipitate their salts. The remote moun- 
taineers are but the Flotsam and Jetsam on the 
stream of society ; rather they are chips and bub- 
bles on the surface of a great inland dead sea of 
salt. Like chips and bubbles they float round and 
round in slow circles, narrow and yet more nar- 
row, moving, but never advancing. 

They are in a deeper sleep than ever Rip Van 
Winkle was. They have bathed themselves in the 
river Lethe, and are unmindful of the progress of 
civilization. . . . Their minds are as unruffled 
as a millpond—as stagnant, too. They have 
neither envy nor ambition. Their case is one of 
arrested development. 

In the great cities one-tenth of the people is said 
to be submerged; in the mountain coves, nine- 
tenths of the people have not yet emerged. They 
are not submerged in the sediment of the stream of 


98 At Our Own Door 


civilization, as the ‘Eastside Whitechapel Folk 
are.’ On the contrary, their vices are not ab- 
normal, their virtues are not exotic. They have 
not deteriorated, nor degenerated. They have not 
reverted to original types. They are the original 
types ; somewhat worn and defaced, but the original 
types; they are neither Liliputians nor Brobding- 
nagians; they are nature’s undeveloped chil- 
dren. . : 

““Sons and Daughters of the Revolution,’ they 
have lost their family record and know not to boast. 
They are blind to their glorious inheritance of 
truth. They have lost their inheritance of char- 
acter. Themselves white men, they too have be- 
come the White Man’s Burden—the element in the 
south most important to be reached. They need 
to be reached. They can be reached by multiplied 
schools and added churches—by an influx of disci- 
plined teachers and of educated preachers.” 

f/ The mountaineer lives at home, seldom ventur- 
ing beyond his native vale, and has but little busi- 
ness with the outside world. One county has but 
little more communication with its next neighbor 
than the Congo Free State has with Uganda. One 
reason of this is the fact that no school exists to 
train the mind and inspire any desire for knowledge 
of that which lies beyond the next mountain 
ridge. 

The poverty of the country allows little pro- 
vision for a public school system. A school levy 
on the taxable property of the mountain region 
would not bring sufficient funds to keep the school 


Mountaineers 99 


in operation even with indifferent and poorly paid 
teachers for more than two months in the year. 
The war impoverished the South, and whilst it has 
now recovered and is building up a school system 
in most places, nothing in comparison has been 
done to alleviate the ignorance of the mountaineer,/ 
According to President Dabney, “The average 
child, whites and blacks together, who attend 
school at all, stops with the third grade. This 
means that the average citizen in the South gets 
only three years of schooling in his whole life. 


AVERAGES. 
Amt. 

Years in Value school Salary of Daysin expended 

school property teacher school year per pupil 

N. C 2.6 $180 $23.36 70.8 $4.34 
Sac; 2.5 178 23.20 88.4 4.44 
Ala. 2.4 212 27.50 78.3 3.10 
Ga. 525 27.00 112.0 6.64 


“Tn other words, in these states, in schoolhouses 
costing an average of $276 each, under teachers 
receiving the average salary of $25 per month, we 
are giving the children in actual attendance five 
cents worth of schooling a day for eighty-seven 
days in the year.” 

If this is the average for the Carolinas, Georgia 
and Alabama as States, who can estimate the edu- 
cational disadvantages of the mountain region ? 

/ Northern people have poured out their money into 
the South for the education of the negro, and he 
is allowed to share in the funds raised by the white 
people of the South as they have taxed their prop- 
erty for public schools. No money in comparison 


100 At Our Own Door 


comes South for the education of the mountain 
whites, and no taxable property in the South pro- 
vides more than a pittance for his education. As 
a consequence, the average negro in the country 
enjoys quadruple advantages from an educational 
standpoint over the descendants of the Scotch-Irish 
in the mountains. Even this does not fully enum- 
erate and reveal the disadvantages of the “child 
of the mountains,” who has also to contend with 
ignorant parents, ready to take the child out of 
school on any pretext or send him to the field to 
assist in the family support. / 

“It were easy to picture homes that would make 
the heart of Christian womanhood ache with un- 
utterable sorrow and pity ; schools that are little 
more than the name might be described in truthful 
detail ; communities where the homely virtues that 
are the part of the Anglo-Saxon’s birthright have 
been overgrown by lust and sin, are not unknown 
in the Southern Mountains—or anywhere else on 
this broad continent of ours. But all that is re- 
quired to show the absolute necessity for help from 
outside sources, given in the spirit of Christian love 
and brotherly kindness, can easily be imagined by 
those whose hearts are tuned to the ery of the 
helpless. The free-handed, open-hearted South, the 
fortunate, prosperous North—each must help ac- 
cording to his ability, until the glad day dawns 
when ‘the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be 
established in the top of the mountains’” (Under 
Our Flag). 

Many of these mountain children are most eager 


Mountaineers 101 


to learn. It is not uncommon for a boy to walk 
from five to seven miles daily to school, and others 
will go barefoot through snow and ice. Miss 
Guernsey quotes from The Christian Endeavor 
World the following pathetic incident of one of 
nature’s children : 

“A young man entered a college office, and, 
touching the president’s arm, asked in a peculiar 
mountain brogue, ‘Be ye the man who sells 
larnin’?’ Before the president could reply, he 
asked again, ‘Look here, mister, do you uns run 
this here thing ?’ 

“The president replied, ‘ Yes, when the thing is 
not running me. What can I do for you?’ 

“¢Heaps,’ was the only reply. Then, after a 
pause, the lad said: ‘I has hearn that you uns 
educate poor boys here, and bein’ as I am poor, 
thought I’'d come and see if it wus so. Do ye?’ 

“The president replied that poor boys attended 
the college, but that it took money to provide for 
them ; that they were expected to pay something. 
The boy was greatly troubled. 

“<“ Have you anything to pay for your food and 
lodging ?’ asked the president. 

“<« Yas, sir,’ was the reply, ‘I has a little spotted 
steer; and if you uns will let me, I’ll stay wid ye 
till I larn him up.’ 

“Such persistence generally carries its point, and 
the lad remained, and the little steer lasted for 
years. The president’s closing comment upon the 
incident is this: ‘I have had the pleasure of sit- 
ting in the pew while I listened to my boy, now a 


102 At Our Own Door 


. young man, as he preached the glad tidings of 
salvation. Does it pay to help such boys ?’ J 
/ If these people were originally Scotch-Irish 
Presbyterians, has the Presbyterian Church no re- 
sponsibility for their condition to-day? Is the 
Presbyterian Church under any special obligation 
to their descendants? Is there any remedy for 
these neglected people, who are stranded among 
the mountains? “Is there no balm in Gilead ?” 
Dr. Guerrant says: “Here is our Jerusalem: 
Americans, Virginians, Kentuckians, Tennesseans 
and North Carolinians, the children of the hills ; owr 
neighbors ; our kith and kin. Begin with them, 
and save them, and let them help us save the 
world. We believe in foreign missions, but we 
also believe in beginning at Jerusalem. These are 
‘heathen at our doors.’ Their souls are worth as 
much as others. They are more easily reached. 
It costs less than half to reach them. The results 
are quicker, because their language is our own; 
their history, tradition, ancestry, the same as our 
own. The consequences of their conversion are 
greater. They will furnish the teachers, ministers 
and missionaries to the heathen abroad.” 
They are as truly without the Gospel, as if they 
lived in the heart of the dark continent. 


“Tf you cannot cross the ocean and the heathen lands explore, 
You can find the heathen nearer, you can help them at your 
door ’? — 


in the slums of the city and in the cabins of the 
mountains. sf 


Mountaineers 103 


/ Some noble philanthropists are already at work 
on the problem of the mountains, and their remedy 
is education ; and the “ Soulwinner’s Association ” 
has entered the field. It may be from lack of 
ample funds, but nothing yet has been projected 
on a sufficient scale to do more than touch the 
outer edges of the problem. Education will re- 
lieve ignorance and elevate in the scale of intelli- 
gence, but it will not regenerate society. Itisa 
debatable question whether mere literary educa- 
tion improves morality. The colored population 
is far better educated to-day than at the close of 
the war, but Ex-President Cleveland in a recent 
address expresses scepticism as to its improvement 
in morality. Thoughtful people in the South, who 
are in position to know, fully endorse his con- 
clusions. Summer schools will not even meet the 
case of the mountaineer from an educational stand- 
point. Noble Christian people may educate and 
even teach these children the Bible and funda- 
mental principles of morality and religion, which 
is a step in the right direction, but unless the or- 
ganized church is planted and maintained near by, 
most of the fish gathered in the school-net will 
escape again to the great sea of unregenerate hu- 
manity./ 

/ If success is ever to crown our efforts in win- 
ning these souls and reclaiming these people lost 
among the mountains, it will be along the lines of 

- industrial and Christian schools, always in connec- 
tion with the Church. ) 

Money is wasted from a Christian standpoint, 


104 At Our Own Door 


that does not ally itself with the Gospel ; and the 
Gospel, according to the appointment of Christ, 
needs always a church to propagate it. 

The Northern Presbyterian Church is doing 
' noble work in this section, as appears from Doyle’s 
“ Presbyterian Home Missions”: “ Presbyterian 
missionary work among the mountain people of 
the South was begun in 1879. The first mission 
school was ‘ Whitehall Seminary.’ It was estab- 
lished near Concord, N. C., and Miss Frances E. 
Ufford was the first teacher. 

“From that beginning the work has grown until 
it extends over the mountain regions of the four 
States of North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky 
and West Virginia. There are to-day, as a result 
of the Home Board’s work, thirty-one churches, 
1,378 church members, seventy-six Sunday-schoois, 
6,172 Sunday-school scholars, thirty-seven mission 
schools, one hundred and eight mission school-teach- 
ers, 3,000 pupils, twenty-one ministers and sixteen 
Bible readers. ( The principal agencies in advane- 
ing missions have been churches, mission schools, 
Sabbath-schools and Bible readers. The churches 
with attendant ministers, have been established as 
rapidly as the means would allow.”) 

{ The Southern Presbyterian Church is else doing 
good work in this field. It exceeds the Northern 
Church in number of churches and members, but 
is behind in Christian schools./ It is impossible to 
give detail of statistics, because the work of the 
Southern Church is not directly under the Execu- 
tive Committee, but is done by various presby- 


Mountaineers 105 


teries and synods, but principally by the “ Synod- 
ical Evangelistic Committee of Kentucky,” Rev. W. 
C. Clark, D. D., chairman, Augusta, Kentucky ; 
and that of North Gustin, Rev. E. E. pr 
superintendent, Greensboro, N. C. 

The Assembly’s Committee of Home Missions 
is just entering this field, having recently ap- 
propriated about $5,000 to begin the work of 
Christian and industrial schools, among the moun- 
taineers. 

Among our institutions, King College at Bristol, 
Tennessee, has done grand work among those de- 
scribed as the better class. For its means, no 
college ever did better work, as may be judged by 
the fact that it gave to the Church such men as 
Dr. R. C. Reed, Dr. T. M. McConnell, Dr. S. R. 
Preston, Dr. J. W. Rogan, Dr. J. I. Vance and 
others equally useful, under the instruction of such 
able teachers as Dr. J. D. Tadlock and Dr. Jas. 
Albert Wallace. 

Among schools doing splendid service for the 
more typical mountaineer is Lees-McRae Institute,) al 
described by Rev. F. B. Converse, D. D.: Banrte 

“Tt was our privilege to visit the Lees-McRae “14/2 
Institute, and we were surprised and gratified at 
what has been and is being accomplished at this 
point. It is located at Banner Elk, in one of the 
most beautiful and most elevated valleys, having 
an altitude of about 4,300 feet, and partly sur- 
rounded by mountain ranges one or two thousand 
feet higher. The importance of a good school was 
appreciated by the evangelists, and an excellent 


106 At Our Own Door 


boarding and day school, under the control of the 
Presbytery of Concord, has been built up within 
the last three or four years by Rev. Edgar Tufts 
and Rev. J. P. Hall. The work that has been ac- 
complished with the limited means at their 
command is simply marvellous. Commenced in a 
small way, it has gradually grown until at the last 
session there were thirty boarders and fifty-five 
day scholars—eighty-five in all. Some of the girls 
came forty miles across the mountains in road 
wagons—a two days’ journey for their fathers to 
bring them, and another two days’ drive returning 
home. It is a banner school in reference to the 
Shorter Catechism. Last year the Christian Ob- 
server sent diplomas to twenty-one of those 
children who had memorized the Shorter Cate- 
chism, and sixteen the previous year, besides 
certificates to those who had committed to memory 
the Child’s Catechism. ; 
“Tt isa mistake to picture the mountain children 
as an inferior class. Some of them are remark- 
ably bright. A prize was offered to the one who 
should first learn the Westminster Catechism per- 
fectly. Two of the girls set resolutely to work 
and recited it without a mistake within a week— 
one of them on the fifth day after she had com- 
menced it. A girl who can and will, in addition 
to her school studies and household duties—for 
the girls here are industrially trained as well as in 
books—learn the 107 answers in the catechism 
within a week, is not deficient either in intellectual 
power or ambition, or pluck. It is a good school, 


Mountaineers 107 


fitting the boys for college and giving the girls 
equal training. One of its students is now in col- 
lege with the ministry in view. Board and tuition 
are furnished to the mountain children who are 
able to pay, at a price lower than we would sup- 
pose was possible; to others board and tuition have 
been given free. 

“While this was being done, it was necessary to 
erect buildings for the accommodation of the in- 
creasing numbers. Twenty acres of land, a most 
beautiful site for such an institution, was secured. 
A dormitory for the girls, a three story building, 
containing twenty-two rooms, has been erected. 
The view from the observatory on top of this 
building, is one of surpassing beauty. A school 
building equally large stands on one side, and the 
Presbyterian church on the other. Besides this, 
there is a fourth building of two rooms, for class 
rooms. The amount of money which has been 
contributed by Presbyterians for this work is ex- 
ceedingly small, out of all proportion to the work 
accomplished. The total amount of cash that has 
passed through Mr. Tuft’s hands during the last 
three years, is only about $5,000. 

“This institution has been co-educational. But 
the two departments are to be separated, and the 
school for boys located in an adjoining county— 
that at Banner Elk being for girls only.” 

Space forbids an account of other institutions. 
These two are given as specimens of what has 
been done by Presbyterians, and what ought to be 
carried on more earnestly on a still larger scale. 


108 At Our Own Door 


In the mountains the Presbyterian church has a 
magnificent field for benevolent and missionary 
operation, but it is not without its difficulties. 
Entrenched among the mountains, almost inac- 
cessible, these unfortunate people are fortified 
behind more formidable mountains of ignorance 
and prejudice. These obstacles will not easily 
yield, nor at once. The uneducated preacher of 
the “rarin’ and rantin’” type watches jealously his 
own peculiar province. He appeals to the preju- 
dice of the ignorant and makes it difficult for an 
educated minister to get the ear of the people in 
many communities. Mormon elders get in some 
of their best work among the mountaineers, induc 
ing many to emigrate to Utah, and in some 
instances they have established churches. They 
have recently established their headquarters at 
Chattanooga, Tenn., and have sent into these 
mountains hundreds of their trained emissaries to 
“lead captive silly women” and these simple peo- 
ple. If these people are to be reached by the 
gospel to any extent, it must be by means of earnest 
consecrated men, giving themselves to it as their 
life-work. If they volunteer to live among the 
filth and abominations of loathsome, heathen 
cities, why should not some be willing to give a 
whole life to these mountaineers. 

It is sometimes said that the Church in the early 
days of Christianity was “accredited ” by ability 
to work miracles. Some go so far as to affirm 
that the Church again needs to be accredited 
among men, and prove her divine character by 


Mountaineers 109 


healing the sick, etc. Believers in faith cures are 
constantly asking, “who said the days of miracles 
are past?” Men are “still seeking after a sign.” 
“Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not be- 
lieve.” 

The Church must accredit herself! Christ and 
the Apostles, by their miracles, accredited them- 
selves. They demonstrated their divine commis- 
sions. So must the Church to-day. What was, 
in His own judgment, the climax of Christ’s grand- 
est works? If John the Baptist asked for proofs 
of His Messiahship, His response was, “Go tell 
John the sick are healed.” If that is not sufficient, 
tell him, “The blind receive their sight.” Give 
even a greater sign, “The dead are raised up.” 
But the climax of all is, “The poor have the gospel 
preached unto them.” This is the only one of 
His greatest works which remains to-day literally 
unchanged. The Church can no longer raise the 
dead. But she can reproduce still the greatest of 
Christ’s works on a grander scale. The Church 
can prove her divinity, to the world, by “ preach- 
ing the gospel to the poor.” 

Is this evidence of Christliness and Christianity 
sufficient ? If she will give this “sign” to the 
world, it will be more potent than healing the 
sick or raising the dead! Raising the dead might 
startle one community, and the fact would be dis- 
puted in the next community. Unbelief is not 
cured by raising the dead. “If they hear not 
Moses and the prophets, neither will they be per- 
suaded, though one rose from the dead.” 


110 At Our Own Door 


ft the Church wants to cure the world’s scepti- 
cism and allay her own misgivings, let her engage 
in a great campaign of home missions before the 
eyes of men. Let earnest consecrated men and 
women in the self-sacrificing spirit of Christ go in 
great numbers to reclaim the slums, and scatter 
themselves in force throughout the mountain 
regions. Let the Church cease “ Playing at Mis- 
sions,” but get down to work. Let wealthy Chris- 
tians furnish the means as in the early days of 
Christianity when whole fortunes were laid at the 
apostles’ feet. Let the Church reproduce the 
spirit of Christ; and the world will accept such 
testimony in evidence of Christianity. What the 
world demands to-day is more home missionary 
enterprise and effort. Men of the world believe 
foreign mission work is the result of sentiment ; it 
does not appeal to their judgment. They are ask- 
ing why men and money are lavished on Africa 
whilst millions of negroes are neglected at our very 
doors; why such zeal for China, Japan and India, 
whilst the slums and mountains are forgotten. 
The Church is rich enough to accept this challenge 
of the world. Without withholding a dollar or 
withdrawing a man from the foreign field, she can 
take hold of the work at home on an immense 
scale. A great home mission revival of “ Preach- 
ing the Gospel to the poor” would meet the ob- 
jection to foreign missions, and at the same time, 
cure the world’s scepticism. By her great organ- 
ized charities, the Church proves herself humane. 
Now, by her great missionary effort in “ Preach- 


Mountaineers 1)1 


ing the gospel to the poor,” let her prove herself 
divine ! 

The slums, the mountains and the great desti- 
tute West invite the experiment, and await the 
demonstration! / 


Vv 
THE WHITE MAN’S BURDEN 


By Rev. D. Clay Lilly, D. D., former Secretary of Colored 
Evangelization.! 


In this brief account of the negro, as we have 
known him in the South, let it be understood that 
when I use the term, negro, it does not stand for 
every individual of the race—but only for the race 
considered in a general way. 

There are as many kinds of negroes as there are 
of other races—‘‘ good, bad and indifferent” is a 
classification that befits them as it does other peo- 
ples. The fact which calls for our sympathy and 
assistance is, that the good class is relatively 
small—and the bad and indifferent largely in the 
majority. 

This good class is intelligent, progressive and 
resourceful. Its religion is notasham. Its edu- 
cation has not spoiled it, and its devotion to duty 
is not inspired by the “loaves and fishes.” Its 
ideals are good—its social standards high, and its 
life wholesome and elevating. It has been lifted 
from heatheu darkness to its present attainments 
by the power of the grace of God. If all Amer- 
ican negroes were of this class, there would be no 
“Negro Problem” and no reason for this chapter 


1 Written at the request of the author. 
112 


The White Man’s Burden We) 


in a volume on home missions. But this class is 
small, as all Southern people know, and the eight 
or nine millions of them in the Southern States 
are principally indifferent or bad. It is not that 
they have suddenly or recently become so. Nor 
that the experience of their ancestors in American 
slavery, is the source of their shortcomings, indus- 
trially, intellectually, morally and spiritually. 
But if any evolutionary process is responsible for 
it, it is the long, long downward course in sin and 
degradation during the unnumbered centuries of 
their separation from the rest of the world and 
their isolation in the jungle. It does not require 
a long period for a family to deteriorate, if left to 
itself under conditions which cut it off from all 
the light and progress of the world—and perhaps 
that branch of the human race which retired into 
the wilds of the Dark Continent and shut itself 
out from the light of civilization, went constantly 
from bad to worse, being for centuries practically 
untouched by explorer, merchant or missionary. 
And strange as it may seem, it was the cruel lash 
of the slave trader, which touched him for good, 
and the overcrowded slave ships, which bore him 
out from intellectual and moral stupefaction, to 
touch again the life and onward go of the throb- 
bing, stressful world. I am no apologist for slav- 
ery. It was the overruling providence of God 
bringing good from evil. Later, emancipation 
clothed him with citizenship and threw him on his 
own resources. And now behold the man, become 
a weakling in all the elements of manhood, except 


114 At Our Own Door 


the physical, brought back into the arena to con- 
tend with those who through the ages have waxed 
strong by the use of all their strength. 

Slavery was the only door which could have 
ever admitted him into the place where he should 
find use for his powers, and by no other way 
could he have entered progressive America 
There was but one way in—there is no way out. 
He is here to stay. Deportation, colonization, 
reservation have all been advocated by sensible 
men, but never seriously considered by the south- 
ern people, white or black. 

It will be best for all parties if the white 
man, strong and dominant, will look seriously and 
sympathetically at the weaker and dependent 
colored man, and seeing him just as he is, intel- 
ligently set about aiding him. 

Those best acquainted with the negro, see him 
to be possessed with the following characteristics : 


Physically : 


He is possessed with a constitutional languor. 
He is naturally sedentary and inactive. He works 
from necessity and not from inspiration. Rarely 
does anything else than daily bread hold him to 
his work; also is he below par as to physical 
accuracy and finish. He will “round off the 
corners” of any task he performs. He will find 
the easy way. If it is plowing, he will skim the 
ground; if it is building, ends will not be square 
—joints will not be flush, uprights will not be 
plumb. If it is whitewashing he will “splash 


The White Man’s Burden rag 


around ” working as if the house were on fire to 
get through quickly and when he is through, not 
only will the desired object be whitened, but 
everything within a reasonable radius will have 
received a generous portion of the wash. 

You may set it down as a pretty general rule, 
that if a man is too languid to articulate cor- 
rectly, he will do everything else in the same 
slovenly way. 

Judged from the standpoint of efficiency, he is 
the poorest quality of labor in this country. 
From an economical standpoint, he is the most 
expensive laborer one can employ. I know land 
which will produce cotton, corn, cane and tobacco 
—four of the most profitable crops of the farm— 
which can be bought for five dollars per acre, 
simply because negro labor will not make it yield 
up its treasures. If the negroes were suddenly 
withdrawn from the South and colonized by them- 
selves elsewhere, they could not make a living for 
themselves, which would compare in comfort with 
what they enjoy at present. If the white people 
should suddenly withdraw from the South to live 
elsewhere, the negroes could not manage success- 
fully the country left to them—and it would de- 
crease in value from the first. 

Had white labor been employed in the South 
exclusively from the first, our cotton would never 
have been manufactured in England—new or 
old. 

The negro has been the “ White Man’s Burden ” 
here as elsewhere—he has enjoyed a tutelage under 


116 At Our Own Door 


the white man. He has been a dull and costly 
pupil to his teacher. It is, of course, true that 
the negroes have made much of the wealth of the 
South—but primary labor does this everywhere 
—and it was during the days of slavery when 
negro labor was organized, controlled and di- 
rected in such a way as to make it efficient and 
remunerative, that this was true in the South. It 
is only true in a very limited way to-day. It is no 
longer possible to organize, control or direct 
negro labor so as to make it of good profit to the 
farmer or planter. It requires great patience and 
forbearance to employ it at all. His redeeming 
traits as a laborer (and I most cheerfully and 
freely speak of them) are his patience and 
tractability, his general good humor, his strength 
of body, and his willingness to work long hours. 
These are good qualities, and they go far towards 
relieving conditions which otherwise would be in- 
tolerable. 


Mentally: 


He is not the equal of the white man. I sup- 
pose ages of disuse of the high powers of the mind 
may account for the atrophied condition of his 
judgment and power of analysis and synthesis. 

In early life the negro gives evidence of good 
mental power—the negro child will learn about as 
rapidly as the white child. But as they advance 
in life the white intelligence will continue to ex- 
pand, while the negro will show a case of 
“arrested development.” It is next to impossible 


The White Man’s Burden 117 


to teach the negro to reason or judge or to ob- 
serve inductively or to investigate. And this is 
true, not because he was for a little while a slave 
in this country, but because for long ages he had 
lived under conditions which made no demand 
upon him for such mental exercises. 


Morally : 


Likewise, he is deficient morally. The negro 
population of the Southern States is, as far as I 
know, the most criminal population living in any 
civilized land—the negroes in the Northern States 
alone being excepted. Being one-third of our 
population, they commit three-fourths of our 
crimes. That this is not due to any treatment 
accorded him by Southern people is amply proven 
by the fact that he is more criminal in the North 
than in the South. His moral character is defi- 
cient. That which deters men from crime is their 
repugnance to it, rather than the fear of the 
penalty attached to it. The white man is deterred 
both by repugnance and penalty. The negro has 
little but the fear of penalty to restrain him. 
Any one acquainted with the negro either in 
America or Africa, knows that he is not troubled 
with a quick conscience. To be caught stealing, 
or proven a liar, will fill most white men of any 
country with shame and confusion. But it does 
not so effect the average negro—it does not ap- 
pear to him much out of the way. A grin, a duck 
of the head, and he scuds away—to repeat the 
break at the first opportunity. 


118 At Our Own Door 


Social impurity is a rottenness found in all races, 
but the sickening prevalence of it among the 
negroes of all countries is testified to by wit- 
nesses who are intelligent, unbiased and well 
informed. 

To one who has not lived in the South, nor 
known much of the negro elsewhere, it is surpris- 
ing to hear a Christian physician who has practiced 
among them for forty years,say that “ninety per 
cent. of the negro population is impure.” But to 
those who know the conditions as they are, the 
statement is not at allstrange. Ionceasked aman 
of the world what per cent. of the negroes he 
thought was impure, and he responded promptly 
and emphatically : “ All of them, sir, all.” I pro- 
test against this—it is not true. I do not pretenc 
to name any per cent. I know though, that their 
immorality is terrible in itself, wasting their en- 
ergies, shocking civilization and discouraging their 
best friends and helpers. His racial conscience has 
not been aroused to abhor such a condition. It is 
numbed, it is stupefied. Ages of wanton license 
have delivered him over to ashameless mind. He 
is a deficient. I speak of the race in general—I 
have already excepted that class which has been 
rescued by God’s grace, and lifted out of the 
mire. 

And, now, how is this weakened man circum- 
stanced ? 

Commercially, he is in competition with the 
white man—ordinarily this is a dangerous position 
for any race to occupy—as the world’s history 


The White Man’s Burden 119 


abundantly testifies. But it has been a safe and 
fortunate place for him in this case. He is well 
adapted to the Southern climate—here he multi- 
plies—here he enjoys life. His labor is always 
marketable at a fair price—and he has a good 
chance to makea living. There is littleor no com- 
mercial antagonism between the two races in the 
South—and you could not with a search warrant 
find a negro who wants to work six days in the 
week and is willing to behave himself, who is do- 
ing anything less than making a living for himself 
and family. There is very much less danger of 
race conflicts than is commonly supposed by per- 
sons unacquainted with the actual conditions. 
When it is remembered that there are 25,000,000 
of people—one-third colored and two-thirds white 
—coming into continual contact 365 days each 
year, it is only to be expected that difficulties will 
arise. But these are not often serious and are as 
infrequent as one can reasonably expect. Econom- 
ically, the negro is as well and safely circumstanced 
as he could be anywhere else in the world. But 
he exhibits deficiencies of the most serious kind in 
the secure haven where the providence of God has 
sheltered him—he has not raised a standard of liv- 
ing in keeping with his opportunities. He has 
lived among a people who are relatively pure in 
life—who are quiet and well-behaved. He has not 
been largely influenced by this wholesome environ- 
ment. Negro morals, negro thought, and negro 
character have not been lifted up to any great de- 
gree. The negro quarter in every city and town 


120 At Our Own Door 


is the place of shame and violence. The Southern 
white people are glad to show respect to good 
character among the negroes, and do show it 
whenever it is manifested among them. There is 
so great a preponderance of the bad that we do not 
often have an opportunity to evince it. There is 
more in the “ Negro Problem” than a mere ques- 
tion of color. It is a question of character also. 
The inequality of character must disappear before 
the setting aside of the color question can be even 
remotely considered. The only thing for the 
colored people now is to arise and set up their 
social standards—standards which articulate with 
the decalogue and then lift up their life to these 
standards. They have not yet erected their stand- 
ards—except in the case of the small class which is 
excepted in all these general statements. 


Religiously : 

His religious life has shown an interesting and 
curious development. Without any but the simplest 
forms of religious worship, he has yet made his 
religion a formal thing—Church membership has 
had a kind of social significance, and has so been 
sought by the many. Church services are punctil- 
iously attended. The whole outward form of re- 
ligion has had a rapid and showy development. 
Proportionally, there are probably as many preach- 
ers, churches and church members among them as 
among the white people. Since the whites have 
been centuries attaining their present religious 
condition, and the negroes only a few decades, 


The White Man’s Burden Wot 


this extraordinary growth must be due either to 
great pentecostal showers or else to great laxity in 
church life. Those familiar with the case have no 
difficulty in deciding which of these two conditions 
has prevailed. Their growth has been too rapid 
and their standards too low, so that religion does 
not have its true meaning among them. Their 
leaders are too often as blind leaders of the blind. 
And yet the negroes are exceedingly dependent 
upon leadership—as all ignorant people are. The 
most disheartening part of this matter is that they 
seem to be satisfied with the present sad condition 
of religious life. Their conception seems to be 
largely erroneous as to what a Christian should be 
and do. 

These strictures are severe, but I do not want to 
be severe—I am trying to tell just what I believe 
to be the truth about the American negro. I 
recognize him as my fellow-man and have always 
tried to be his friend and helper—I am trying to 
show that he is in need of help, that this help must 
be given graciously, patiently and perseveringly. 
He needs to be helped up to a better life. There 
are many steps of progress ahead of him—if he 
cares to take them. But no matter how many he 
assays or few may content him, he will have to 
take the first step first. 


THE First STEP oF PROGRESS 


He is in the laboring class of this country. He 
cannot be advanced to any higher class until he 
has shown himself master of the one he is now in. 


122 At Our Own Door 


The great University of Life passes none of her 
pupils to higher grades until they have proven 
their proficiency in their present standing. So 
that whatever exhortation may be addressed to 
him, or whatever laws passed to advance him, or 
money spent to elevate him, he can never reach 
any higher plane, until he first fills acceptably the 
place he now occupies. Not until he has become 
a Christian, reliable and efficient laboring class, 
can he ever become anything more. He consti- 
tutes our primary labor supply, but it is in too 
large a measure a malingering, unreliable, criminal 
supply—to say nothing of its inefficiency and 
wastefulness. Until these blemishes are removed, 
and the negro fills acceptably this position of pri- 
mary laborer, he need not hope for any real promo- 
tion to higher things. His first step of progress 
must be to make conquest of the domain com- 
mitted to him for the present. This is the history 
of all development, whether of the individual or 
family or nation. 


The First Great Need 


But to accomplish this first stage of progress— 
we must strike at the very centre of the matter, 
viz.: the spiritual life of the negro. A great 
moral reformation, such as has from time to time 
swept over lands peopled by white races, must 
reach the negroes of this land. If asked the 
greatest need of the American negro to-day, I 
would say: “ Preachers of the right kind.” Ido 
not fail to appreciate the work of the large num- 


The White Man’s Burden 123 


ber of faithful ministers who occupy so many of 
their pulpits to-day. All honor to them. But 
they, themselves, are keenly aware of the failings 
of a great part of their ministry and know that, 
too often, the so-called shepherd is a destroyer 
and not a helper. The most direct approach to 
the spring of life of a people is through their 
preachers of the gospel. If these can be made 
what they should be, and the gospel message is 
sounded out by them, the reforms—moral, social 
and economic—will surely follow. None but 
those who have sinned away their day of grace 
can listen to the preaching of the gospel and not 
become better men and women. And to become 
better men and women, is to become better cooks, 
laundresses, wagoners and ploughmen, as well as 
better fathers and mothers, and thinkers and 
teachers. Here is the point of attack. If the 
fight is made persistently on this line, the victory 
is assured. If every pulpit among this people 
should be filled with a pure, intelligent, scriptural 
preacher they would speedily show great moral 
advances. All this terrible past can be undone 
by the power of the grace of God. Suppose that 
this ministry should banish the emotionalism, 
pregnant in their worship, and be quick to correct 
errors of life by admonition, suspension and excom- 
munication, and raise up the standard of the cross, 
as the standard of daily life; can any one doubt 
the saving effect of such a course, or its ultimate 
triumph ? If the Christian home should become a 
prominent feature of their life, and the children 


124 At Our Own Door 


be trained in the love of the Lord and encouraged 
to fill their place in life weld, however humble it 
may be, does any one doubt the improvement 
which would follow ? 


The Second Great Need 


The negro religious and domestic life has been 
largely developed from its emotional side alone. 
It should have its intellectual side awakened. But 
it is difficult to do this in their present illiterate 
condition. And again: it is difficult to make 
mere book learning of advantage to them, so long 
as they are content with their present moral and 
spiritual condition. So that I would say that 
these two great forces must move together. The 
second great need of the negro is for a larger 
supply of faithful and godly school-teachers. 
Much has been said, pro and con, on the subject of 
negro education. I think opposition to it arises 
largely from opposition to the methods of some 
who have undertaken to give help along this line. 
Not every kind of education is good for every kind 
- of person. To conceive of educating the whole 
negro race in the higher branches of learning is as 
foolish as it is economically impracticable. There 
is no race with such endowment that all of its 
people can be highly educated. At present only 
a small per cent. of the colored population need 
the higher education. I would say give the whole 
race, as soon as possible, an elementary education. 
Any life should be better and more serviceable for 
knowing this. Then, give those who have the 


The White Man’s Burden 125 


aptitude, a higher grade of education, expanding 
and enlarging their life and preparing them to fill 
acceptably positions as preachers, teachers, physi- 
cians, etc. Finally, give to those who can re- 
ceive and use it, the very highest kind of training. 
The negro race must have leaders from its own 
race—these can be developed only by the best 
training. But let it be emphasized in all these 
kinds of training that education prepares for more 
and better work, and not that it ennobles or en- 
titles one to live without work. It will not do to 
take a weak people and merely educate them in 
books—no quicker way of their undoing could be 
devised. 

A school for negro children and youth should 
never lose sight of the idea of discipline—the mak- 
ing of moral fibre, the lifting up of ideals and the 
strengthening of purpose are worth vastly more 
than the information gained from books. Cleanli- 
ness, immediate and perfect obedience, unfailing 
promptness and the utmost thoroughness in detail 
—these should be the A B C of the school for ne- 
groes. A school that develops these is a good 
place for any child to be, but is especially needed 
by the negro child, because he has small oppor- 
tunity to learn them elsewhere. 

Industrial education, where faithfully and hon- 
estly done, is of the highest value in developing 
all these qualities and has a higher value, in that 
it prepares the child for its place in life. A school 
which would embody these characteristics would 
be an ideal school for negro youth. 


126 At Our Own Door 


Other Needs 

So much he should learn from church and school. 
And from church and school—and the great school 
of life—he should learn to have a greater self-re- 
spect. A man with no character to maintain is in 
‘a deplorable condition—he is a moral bankrupt. 
The negro must awake to the possibilities of his 
life. If he holds himself up, no right thinking 
man will hold him down. 

Also he must learn the invaluable lesson of 
self-help. He has employed the patronage of 
philanthropy to such extent that he is in danger 
of coming to depend upon the assistance of others 
rather than the efforts of self. But no one can 
give him any gift comparable with a noble spirit 
of independence, which seeks help only when its 
last resource has been expended in the effort to be 
its own helper. Every man should be his own 
best friend. In life there are no gratuities—char- 
acter cannot be bestowed with the alms, and he is 
best helped who is helped to help himself. Self- 
help should be a large article in the creed of the 
negro, who desires progress and success. 

Again, he should learn self-direction, etc., to 
work and not merely to be worked. The negro 
population drudge. Work is a necessity but 
drudging is the poorest quality of work both for 
employer and employed. There should be an in- 
spiration for every day’s toil. He should work as 
one with an intelligent purpose and as one who 
strives to accomplish something. To toil aimlessly 
and hopelessly, even though it be laboriously, is 


The White Man’s Burden 127 


not to do one’s best. Unless thought and purpose 
be put into it, work becomes an unbearable bur- 
den and the yoke its fitting symbol. But to plan, 
to hope, to achieve—this is to make work a pleas- 
ure and the laborer a man, and not “a ss to 
the ox.” 

All this he must learn, all this he must do. 
After he has done this he can and will do more, 
but this must come first. 


Our Part in the Work 


I have thus far said nothing directly about our 
own work for the colored people—but all I have 
said is pertinent to it. 

The characteristics I have named are those 
recognized by us all as belonging to the colored 
people. The economic dependence of the colored 
man upon the white is known to us all. 

The commercial, social and religious defects of 
the weaker people are known to every one of us. 
The principles I have laid down are those to which 
we subscribe. It only remains I should indicate 
how the work of the Executive Committee of Col- 
ored Evangelization in the Presbyterian Church 
corresponds with these facts. 

This committee seeks by means of Stillman In- 
stitute at Tuscaloosa, Ala., to train a ministry of 
the kind mentioned above as the first great need 
of the American negro. 

It insists upon moral uprightness in the students 
at Stillman Institute, and the superintendent and 


128 At Our Own Door 


faculty at Tuscaloosa do all they can to help the 
life of the student body on a high plane. 

The committee will not employ among the col- 
ored ministers a man whose character it has reason 
to doubt, and exercises what vigilance it can to 
keep the body of its workers as a band above re- 
proach. 

The Stillman Institute insists upon the student 
doing what he can for himself, and reduces the 
help given him to a minimum. It advises him 
continually to be his own dependence. It de- 
mands from him labor which it seeks to direct so 
as to make it profitable to the student—teaching . 
him skill and economy, and exhorting him to = 
gence and fidelity. 

It does what it can for him intellectually and 
encourages him to g» slowly and thoroughly. 

It teaches him to oe a practical teacher and pas- 
tor, and prepares him for usefulness to his people 
by teaching him their present condition and needs. 
It seeks to make strong men who shall bear their 
part in the great work to be done for that race by 
her own sons. 

In addition to the work of preparing preachers, 
the institute fits a young man for the position of 
Christian teacher. Also the committee encourages 
the ministers in its employ to conduct such schools 
as are mentioned above under the second great 
need of the negroes. 

The committee also endeavors to enlist white 
Christians in the work of the mission Sunday- 
schools for colored children, These schools have 


The White Man’s Burden 129 


done a good work wherever they have been given 
a faithful trial, and God’s blessing rests upon 
them. 

After five years’ experience as the executive 
Secretary of this work for our Church, I am per- 
suaded that our work for the colored people is a 
good work. It is well thought out. It rests ona 
solid foundation. It is as successful as we may 
reasonably expect. It is in every way worthy of 
the contributions of our people to it. 

I have severed my connection with the work, 
but not because of disappointment with it, nor 
discouragement because of lack of support from 
the white churches. I believe the colored people 
need our help—that our way of giving it is the 
right way, and that we do not need to alter our 
principles but to endorse them with our gifts and 
with our personal efforts. 


VI 
THE MEXICANS IN TEXAS 
By Rev. Walter S. Scott, Evangelist, 


THE presbytery of Western Texas embraces 
fifty large counties covering an area of 70,740 
square miles, and containing a population of 390,- 
000. It is one of the largest presbyteries in the 
empire synod of our Assembly. It is as large in 
area as the States of Virginia and West Virginia 
together. Roughly estimated, it measures in 
straight lines 300 miles north and south, and 500 
miles from northwest to southeast. In fact, it can 
be said that it has no western boundary—it can 
take in the entire republic of Mexico. 

Bordering on a foreign country for the length 
of seven hundred miles, situated as it is at “the 
meeting of the waters,” and with a heterogeneous 
population, the difficulties and the importance of 
its home missionary work cannot be exaggerated. 

1. It is this unique presbytery, which stands 
high in its contributions to foreign missions and 
to the cause of education, and has furnished its no 
small quota of ministerial candidates, which, with- 
out in any way neglecting its American work, is 
undertaking, with the aid of the Central Com- 


1 Written at the request of the author. 
130 


The Mexicans in Texas 131 


mittee of Home Missions, the evangelization of the 
90,000 Mexicans within its bounds. 

Whether for our weal or woe, certainly for their 
intellectual betterment and temporal well-being, 
the Mexicans are coming into the State in ever- 
increasing numbers. One hundred and fifty 
thousand is a small estimate of the number in the 
State. 

We have nothing to do directly with the indus- 
trial and the international phases of the question, 
nor are we to quarrel with the condition; it is for 
us, as a people charged with the high commission 
to evangelize the world, to meet it calmly and 
resolutely and discharge our Christian obligation 
to this influx of aliens; rejoicing that, in the 
Providence of God, they have come within this 
free, Christian land of ours, where, comparatively, 
they can be reached with the gospel more easily 
and more effectively. 

There are towns on the border where the Eng- 
lish language is rarely spoken; there are county 
schools where the children learn more Spanish 
than English. There are some twelve newspapers 
published in Spanish in the State. In San An- 
tonio, the metropolis of Texas, there are 12,000 
Mexicans, with 5,000 more in the county out of 
the city. In one of the largest public schools of 
the city, there are more Mexican pupils than 
American. I once saw seven hundred convicts 
assembled in the Huntsville penitentiary, one 
hundred of whom were Mexicans. 

2. The Mexicans are nominally Roman Cath- 


132 At Our Own Door 


olics. To those who question our policy of evan- 
gelization, I would say that the glory of our 
Protestant Church is that it frees men from relig- 
ious thraldom. In our country every one is free 
to worship God according to the dictates of his 
conscience, and to believe according to the best 
light he has. We do not owe this freedom to the 
Romish Church ; it is not a product of its system., 
So long as we do not proselyte with firebrand and 
sword, and do not compel people to our faith with 
cruel persecutions, as the French Catholics have 
done with Protestants in Madagascar, no one 
should complain. Is not the Catholic Church 
proselyting Protestants to-day on the Hawaiian 
Islands? Did she not but recently proselyte four 
hundred Protestants at one time on the Fiji Is- 
lands? Is she not by her “special missions to 
non-Catholics,” carrying on in this country a cam- 
paign of proselyting as she has never done before ? 

But we are not proselyting. The common peo- 
ple of Roman Catholic countries—the Mexicans 
among them—are sick and tired of that Church’s 
spiritual dominion, and of the emptiness of its 
worship and teachings; their hungry souls are 
crying out for the Living Bread. They are with- 
out the gospel, which “is the power of God unto 
salvation” ; they are ignorant of the truth as it is 
in Jesus, therefore, they cannot possess the saving 
faith which cometh by the word of God. 

Then, they do not pray; they do not come unto 
God by Christ; they know not the joy of draw- 
ing near with boldness unto a throne of grace. 


The Mexicans in Texas 133 


They have a pagan’s idea of sin and repentance ; 
they know nothing of regeneration, nor of the in- 
dispensable work of the Spirit. Ina word, they 
are without God, and without hope in the world. 

Woe unto us if we preach not the Gospel unto 
them ! 

In giving the Gospel to these people we are not 
only obeying our risen Lord’s command to make 
disciples of all the nations, but we are rendering 
an inestimable service to our country as well, by 
teaching them to be law-abiding, industrious and 
thrifty citizens. We are establishing Christian 
homes among them where the Lord’s day is kept, 
where prayer and praise are heard, where the young 
are being taught to fear God and keep His com- 
mandments, and where the marriage relation is 
held in honor. 

It should be also borne in mind that by evangel- 
izing the Mexicans in Texas we are indirectly 
contributing to the evangelization of Mexico. 
The people are going and coming constantly and 
the Gospel leaven is being carried to their native 
land where it has borne fruit in a number of in- 
stances. Dr. A. T. Graybill has said that the 
beginning of his church at Linares, Mex., was 
largely due to a man who had been converted in 
Texas. : 

We have seen too many instances of the efficacy 
of the precious word of God and of the work of 
the Holy Spirit among them to doubt for a mo- 
ment their need of the Gospel and our duty to give 
it to them. The hundreds of Mexican brethren 


134 At Our Own Door 


who have been given to us as trophies of our work 
are so many incentives for us to redouble our 
efforts in behalf of the many thousands who are 
yet groping in the dark, professing to know God, 
but in their works denying Him. 

Our members would not give up the Bible nor 
their evangelical faith and go back to what they 
were before without a great struggle; many 
would die first; for they well know 7 would mean 
going back to the world. 

Taking everything into consideration I can 
truthfully testify to the stability of our converts. 
The few that have gone back to the priest during 
the eleven and a half years of my ministry, were not 
living above reproach when they left us, and have 
since become extremely worldly and licentious. 

3. To form a just estimate of our success we 
must not, on the one hand, doubt the efficacy of 
the Gospel nor the power of the Spirit to con- 
vict and convert the Mexicans; and on the other, 
we should not expect to succeed better, or even as 
well, in our Mexican work, considering the besotted 
ignorance and gross superstitiousness of the people, 
and the men and means at our command, as in 
the regular work of the Church among Americans. 

The Mexican work was organized when the 
Presbytery of Western Texas ordained an evangel- 
ist and put him in charge of it in April of 1892. 
We then had but one church with fifty-nine mem- 
bers, and no property to speak of. 

In April of this year (1903)—after eleven and a 
half years, we reported thirteen organized churches, 


The Mexicans in Texas 135 


680 members, twenty-one elders and seventeen 
deacons. There were eleven Sunday-schools with 
forty teachers and officers and 415 scholars. | 
Owing to the migratory character of the people 
we lose a number of members every year. I have 
estimated that we have lost, in one way and 
another, some three hundred members, in ten 
years. This should be taken into account in order 
to get a correct idea of the growth of the work as 
regards the number of members received. We 
have two evangelists and three Mexican ordained 
preachers, and a day school at Laredo with two 
teachers. Seven of our churches have their own 
houses of worship. 

Last year 103 members were received on ex- 
amination, and fifty-five adults and fifty-eight 
children were baptized. The Mexicans contrib- 
uted $450.00 for all purposes. 

For this great work we are receiving but $2,000 
a year from the Central Committee of Home Mis- 
sions; the rest of the expense is borne by the 
presbytery. Last year, the cost per new member 
received was $27.00. While in our American 
work at large it cost over $100.00 per new mem- 
ber, it cost the Mexican work less than $30.00; 
and while in the whole Church it took one hun- 
dred to win five members on profession, in the 
Mexican work one hundred members won sixteen. 
Every one interested in this work should be satisfied 
with such success. 

y The original church here at San Marcos has in- 
“creased to four churches and a membership of 350. 


136 ~ At Our Own Door 


Each church has its Sabbath-school; three of them 
have a Young People’s Society and a Woman’s 
Missionary Society. Services are held every Sun- 
day, the weather permitting, conducted by the 
elders in my absence.’ Each church has its own 
house of worship, the members themselves doing 
most of the work in their construction. The mem- 
bers of the four churches have helped each other 
in the erection of their chapels, furnishing labor, 
tools and teams. 

The elders and deacons of these four churches 
have an association regularly organized, which 
meets once a month, for mutual improvement and 
for mutual incentive and cooperation in the work. 

I feel that if nothing more had been given us to 
reward the work of eleven and a half years, the 
success that has attended the work in the San 
Marcos field amply justifies the labor and money 
expended. One of the three preachers we have, 
* came from these churches. Three other young 
men are studying for the ministry and a fourth 
will soon begin. 

As instances of the zeal and consecration of our 
_ Mexican elders, I will mention one who goes 
nearly every Sunday, when the weather will per- 
mit, sixteen miles on horseback from his farm to 
church to ‘conduct Sunday-school and service. 
Another is going once a month some seventy-five 
or eighty miles in his own conveyance, at his own 
expense and without any pecuniary remuneration, 
to hold services for a week or ten days. 

Surely there is a good foundation in the char- 


The Mexicans in Texas 137 


acter of these people upon which we can build up, 
with the blessing of God, a strong, self-propagat- 
ing and self-sustaining church in the future. 

4. We could greatly enlarge our work if we 
had the means. We would like to take our place 
and do our modest share in the great forward 
movement in home missions. 

We need right now $1,200, with what we can 
raise on the ground, to build three chapels where 
they are greatly needed. 

The Committee of Education has signified its 
willingness to aid us in the support of our Mexican 
students while pursuing their theological studies 
in some accredited seminary of our Church, but 
we need help to put them through their prepara- 
tory course at some suitable school. 

Means should be given us to establish a theolog- 

ical school, where men with a good literary and 
scientific foundation can be prepared for the Gos- 
pel ministry. 
. The longer I work in this field the more im- 
pressed I am with the need of a seminary for our 
Mexican girls where the future wives and mothers 
of our mission can receive a practical training 
and a Christian education, fitting them to dis- 
charge their important and peculiar duties in the 
home and church. 

Would that some one endowed with means 
would give us the money with which to establish 
this much needed girls’ school, whose influence in 
propagating the faith and building up Christ’s 
kingdom among this people would be incalculable. 


138 At Our Own Door 


“Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord 
Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love of the Spirit, 
that ye strive together with me in your prayers to 
God,” for this work. 


VII 
INDIANS AND THEIR TERRITORY 


Ss 1. In his discovery of America, Columbus im- 
agined that he had sailed around the world and 
touched the shores of India; and so the strange 
people inhabiting America were called “ Indians.” 
Four hundred years of contact with these “ origi- 
nal inhabitants ” and study of the problem of their 
nationality leave us as ignorant of their origin as 
at first.. They have been supposed by some to be 
“the lost ten tribes of Israel,” a theory as fanciful 
and with as little foundation as Professor Tot- 
ten’s Anglo-Israel speculation. Others have ex- 
plained how they drifted across Behring’s Strait, 
where the old and the new world almost touch. 
The mystery perhaps will never find solution. The 
North American tribes are known in history as 
“savages,” a well earned title; but in Mexico the 
Astecs and in South America the Incas dwelt in ~ 
cities, exhibiting a high type of civilization and 
leaving relics and ruins which still perplex the 
scientist./ 

The aborigines of North America were sepa- 
rated into distinct tribes, speaking at least two hun- 
dred languages, roaming the forests, living in tem- 
porary wigwams, cultivating none of the soil except 
a little patch of Indian corn, the work of the 

139 


140 : At Our Own Door 


“squaw,” whilst the “braves ” spent their time in 
hunting wild game and in scalping the prisoners 
captured from neighboring tribes. Still with all 
their savagery, brutality and degradation, they 
have established their claim to recognition in the 
“Unity of the Human Race” by the possession of 
many traits of nobility of character and by some 
rude knowledge of the Deity. “Lo, the poor 
Indian, whose untutored mind saw God in the 
cloud and heard Him in the wind,” demonstrates 
his religious nature, and his childlike faith in “the 
Great Spirit,” and his right, to recognition in the 
Brotherhood of Man. ) 

f “The character of the American Indian has 

"been variously estimated. James Fennimore 
Cooper, in his matchless Indian stories, has ideal- 
ized him and has described him as capable of being 
inspired by lofty motives and of performing heroic 
and self-sacrificing deeds. On the other hand, there 
have been those who have scarcely found language 
in which to express their opinion of the cruelty 
and treachery of the Indian character. The golden 
mean is perhaps the better estimate. Like all other 
races, the Indian was a mixture of good and evil, 
and was capable of performing both heroie and 
diabolical deeds ” (Dr. Sherman Doyle). 

“There is no good Indian but a dead Indian,” 
has grown intoa proverb, which contains about as 
much truth as the slander that “the Pilgrims upon 
landing at Plymouth Rock fell first upon their 
knees and then upon the aborigines.” The first 
is a slander of the Indian, which seeks to justify 


Indians and Their Territory 141 


our national treatment of him ; the latter isa criti- 
cism which arraigns the government as a mur- 
derer of the innocent and a robber of his lands. 

Ft It is doubtful whether there was ever a quarrel in 

which the wrong was all on one side and the right 
on the other. It matters little how the enmity 
between the races originated, the United States and 
its people are not wholly innocent in their dealings 
with him, but neither is the Indian himself blame- 
less. If there have been broken treaties on 
one side, there have been treachery and toma- 
hawks on the other. If the Indian has been 
driven from his “ hunting ground,” he has received 
other lands more than his needs require; and he 
has been given “rations,” civilization, education 
and Christianity. / If the French employed his 
tomahawk and scalping knife against the English, 
the English and the American have used him as a 
tool against the French and against each other. 

; But there can be no questioning the fact that in 

/ the balances of compensation, he has received more 

of good than evil at the hands of the white 

\ man. 

/ The charge of exterminating the Indians contains 
more or less of truth, but is certainly not proven. 
Whilst many have estimated their number in 
North America inthe settlement of the country, 
at several millions, itis at best a guess without any 
basis of data. Many conservative estimates equally 
worthy of consideration place the number at much 
less than half a million. In that view of the case 
“extermination ” has only reduced him to 266,000 


142 At Our Own Door 


according to the latest census. If civilization is 
exterminating him, it must be admitted that the 
process has been slower than his own internecine 
method of warfare, by which he was exterminat- 
ing himself, and certainly much more humane. J 

Hon. T. J. Morgan, ex-commissioner of Indian 
Affairs, and for ten years corresponding Secretary 
of missions in the Baptist Church, furnishes the 
most exhaustive and just summary of our relations 
to the Indians ever attempted, which may be 
abridged as follows : 

They were our /orerunners, who preceded us 
and had the oldest claim upon the American Con- 
tinent ; our Hosts, who welcomed our pilgrim fore- 
fathers when they landed at Plymouth Rock; our 
Landlords, from whom we first rented and ac- 
quired land; our Liwal Nation, with whom we 
made treaties and traded; at times our Savage 
foes, burning our homes and cruelly tomahawk- 
ing alike defenseless women and little children ; 
afterwards our Friendly Allies, who helped us to 
fight our battles against our enemies; gradually 
overcome by the white people they became Con- 
quered Subjects ; now the Wards of the nation 
receiving constant help from the government ; as 
lands are being allotted them in the Indian Terri- 
tory, they are becoming our Fellow Citizens ; many 


of them are still Savages and Heathen, who must be 


evangelized and led to Jesus; and numbers are now 
converted and are our Fellow Christians and Breth- 
ren in Christ, assisting in the great work of giving 
the Gospel to others. 


“SS 


Indians and Their Territory 143 


Others have divided our treatment of the Indian 
into three periods : 

(a) The Colonial, characterized by war, blood- 
shed, treachery on both sides and rapine—a perfect 
reign of terror. The farmer returned from his 
fields to find his wife scalped and his children car- 
ried away into the trackless forests to a living 
death. The villager was awakened at midnight 
by the yells of savages or the lurid flames that 
laid in ashes the town. The congregation carried 
their muskets to church and stacked them outside 
the door. Indians were cheated and maltreated 
by the settlers; often enticed by fair promises to 
their death. 

(b) The National Period, designated by Helen 
Hunt Jackson, “The Century of Dishonor,” in 
which there were constant wars between the races, 
the Seminoles driven from Florida, the Cherokees 
from Georgia and the Creeks from Alabama— 
driven by soldiers ever westward—in which multi- 
tudes perished during the long overland route. 
New treaties were made giving lands to the 
Indians “while water ran and grass grew,” only 
to be violated before the ink in which the treaty 
was written had scarcely dried. This was the 
period of the “Indian Agent,” “rations,” and 
government guardianship. Corrupt men grew 
fat by robbing the Indian of his supplies, etc. ; but 
it was not worse than the average “spoils politi- 
cian system ” ; and which we may expect to have 
repeated in Porto Rico, the Philippines, etc., where 


144 At Our Own Door 


bad men are confronted with temptation and the 
_ opportunity. 

(c) The third period is known as “ The Peace 
Policy,” beginning in 1870, when President Grant 
announced his intention of dealing with the Indians 
_in a more friendly and righteous manner. Civili- 

zation and education were invoked to ameliorate 
his condition. Industrial schools and colleges were 
established ; and Christian people invited to send 
missionaries to instruct them in the way of right- 
eousness, etc. This is beginning to bear fruit ; and 
the Indian is fast coming to the privilege of citizen- 
ship and into the possession of property and lands. 

In the Capitol at Washington are four histor- 
ical pictures, which are striking object lessons of 
the treatment which the Indians have received. 
The first is the landing of white men, and the 
‘offering of corn to them by the Indians. The 
second is the signing of the treaty ceding Pennsyl- 
vania to the white man. The third shows Poca- 
hontas in the act of defending Capt. John Smith. 
The fourth represents an engagement between the 
whites and the Indians, in which the latter are 
being killed. An Indian, to whom the Capitol 
was being shown, stood thoughtfully before the 
pictures described and summed up the history of 
his people in a few simple words: “Indian give 
white man corn. Indian give white man land. 
Indian save white man. White man kill Indian.” 
Admitting this simple indictment as the truth of 
history, is there anything to be said in extenua- 
tion besides the law of self-preservation, which 


Indians and Their Territory 145 


often required the white man to fight for his life ? 
In other words, has the Indian received any proper 
compensation for his ill treatment? Passing by 
the thousands of dollars spent in “rations” and 
education by the Government in the effort to civi- 
lize him for citizenship—amounting to $140,000,000 
in the last thirty years—let us glance at the work 
of the Church in Christianizing him and preparing 
him for the citizenship of heaven. 

The Indian suffered much at the hands of the 
Spaniard, but to him belongs the honor of making 
the first attempt to establish missions among the 
North American tribes. Many Franciscan Monks 
perished in the attempt, but finally succeeded in 
establishing a successful mission at St. Augustine, 
Fla. Many converts at different times blessed 
their labors. The first Protestant mission for 
Indians was established at Martha’s Vineyard. 
Thomas Mayhew, father and son, devoted them- 
selves to the work of Christianizing the Indians.) It 
is said the first convert, ‘‘ Hiacoomes,” became a 
preacher of the Gospel among his own people. In 
1650 Mayhew reported 190 conversions among this 
people. 

* “Most conspicuous among the early successful 
missionaries to the Indians stands John Eliot, ‘the 
apostle to the Indians.’ The field of his labors 
was among the Pequots and other tribes of East- 
ern Massachusetts. He began his work in 1646 
while pastor of the church at Roxbury, Mass. He 
labored incessantly and his efforts were crowned 
with success, He gathered converts into towns 


146 At Our Own Door 


and established schools and civilized industries 
among them. These towns were known as ‘ pray- 
ing bands,’ or ‘Indian praying towns.’ He framed 
two catechisms for Indian use and translated the 
Bible into their language, which was his greatest 
work. The translation of the entire Bible was com- 
pleted in December, 1658. Two years later the 
printing of it was finished. This was the first Bible 
printed on the American Continent. 

“ What a providence that tt should hawe been in 
‘ the Indian tongue! Eliot’s motto, written at the 
end of his Indian Grammar, was, 


“<« Prayer and pains, 
Through Faith in Jesus Christ, 
Will do anything” / 


He labored for thirty years among his people 
teaching them to work, to read and to pray. ‘He 
gave them a Bible in their own tongue and from 
those hunting and fighting savages six Indian 
churches were gathered, whose more than a thou- 
sand “ Praying Indians,” once and again stood firm 
against fearful odds, and became a bulwark of 
safety to their pale face neighbors.’ 

“The Quakers began their Indian missionary 
work in Pennsylvania in 1685. Penn’s famous 
treaty with the Delawares, which was unbroken 
for seventy years by either party, has been called 
‘the brightest spot in all our dark dealings with 
the Indian tribes.’ The Moravians early estab- 
lished successful Indian missions. They began 
their work in western Connecticut in 1742, but 


Indians and Their Territory 147 


labored most extensively in Pennsylvania, Georgia 
and Ohio. . . . Rev. Jonathan Edwards, the 
great New England divine, was also a successful 
missionary among the Indians. ). 
/ “The Presbyterian Church has always been in- 
, « terested in the conversion of the American Indians. 
The history of Presbyterian missions among the 
Indians ‘is a long and inspiring story from early 
Colonial efforts beginning with Long Island Indians 
to this opening of the twentieth century, when at 
least thirty-five tribes have been reached and 120 
missions and schools are in successful operation in 
the great West.’ The first Presbyterian missionary 
among the American Indians was Rev. Asariah 
Horton. He began his work on Long Island 
in 1741. His salary was £40 per annum. 

“Rev. David Brainerd, the biography of sess 
consecrated life was written by Jonathan Kd- 
wards, was the second Presbyterian missionary to 
the Indians. . . . Dr. Ashbell Green says his 
‘success here was perhaps without a parallel in 
heathen missions since the days of the apostles’ ” 
(Presbyterian Home Missions). # 

The Presbyterian Church carried on successful 
missions among many tribes and did a great work 
for Christ among these children of the forest. In 
addition to the great number of converts won in 
many quarters, it can point to the Choctaws, 
Chickasaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Seminoles of 
the Indian Territory, to-day numbered among 
Christian people, as the “ Five Civilized Nations,” 
largely due to the work and influence of the mis- 


148 At Our Own Door 


sionary. At the beginning of the Civil War these 
cast in their lot with the Southern States, and were 
ministered to by the Southern Church, which spent 
$20,000 on them the first year of the war. The 
strain of the war which reduced the Southern peo- 
ple to extreme poverty was a hindrance to suc- 
cessful prosecution of the work; and yet few mis- 
sions have been more creditable alike to benefactors 
and beneficiaries. The war ruined the South finan- 
cially, and being unable to meet the needs of the 
work, with unselfish generosity the Southern 
Church transferred all the Northern section of the 
Indian Territory to the Northern Presbyterian 
Church, confining its own operations to the two 
tribes of Choctaws and Chickasaws. By this act 
it lost the results of its large outlay of funds and 
self-sacrificing effort, but gave to our sister church 
one of the brightest fields of missionary enter- 
prise, which to their credit let it be said has been 
faithfully cultivated. During the forty years of 
its separate existence, the Southern Church has re- 
ceived about 2,500 Indians into the fold of Christ 
and expended perhaps a quarter of a million dol- 
lars on their evangelization. After transferring 
many of their converts to the Northern Church, 
and contributing numbers to the Church Trium- 
phant, it still has forty churches and about 1,000 
communicants among them. Of these, eighteen 
have been organized within the past two years, 
many of them containing white people so rapidly 
settling the Indian Territory. One new presby- 
tery has recently been formed of eight ministers 


Indians and Their Territory 149 


and twenty churches, which marks the more re- 
cent growth of revived work in this field. 

One of our missionaries, Mrs. Bella McCallum 
Gibbons, a cultured and refined Christian woman, 
who is giving her life and heart to this work and 
rendering noble service to Christ and the Church 
in this field, is best entitled to testify to the charac- 
ter of this people, and the work under present con- 
ditions: 

“ As the Indian was 400 years ago, he is in many 
respects the same to-day. Although they have 
adopted the dress, and many of the customs of 
our race, still toa great extent they are children 
of Nature, simple in their habits, reverent in their 
devotions, given to hospitality to friend or to foe. 

“Tt is generally believed that as a race they are 
indolent, but thatisa mistake. Itis true that many 
of them are very poor, hundreds of them without 
the necessities of life, much less the comforts, still 
when we remember the life of their ancestry, we 
must not be too harsh in our judgment. 

‘When living here unmolested, their wants were 
simple, their little patches made them bread, the 
game in the forest furnished their meat, while the 
skins of animals were used for bedding and shelter. 
They did not know how to till their land, to build 
their homes, but many of them have learned, more 
are learning all the time ; and although to the out- 
side world their advancement has been slow on those 
lines, when we consider their opportunities for an 
education that would teach them to be energetic, 
self-sustaining, providing for the future, we must 


150 At Our Own Door 


again throw the veil of charity over them, because 
they have never been taught how to best apply 
their latent energy in the right way. 


f “By nature Indians are of a reverent disposition, 
‘and when they profess Christianity at all, theirs is 


religion in all simplicity and purity. They are not 
bothered in their belief with either creeds or dog- 
mas, the simple story of ‘the Cross’ is sufficient 
for them in this life, as well for the one which 
holds so much promise to them when they pass to 
the one beyond. All their worship is sacred to 
them, and their church hymns, sung in their own 
language, mostly written in minor keys are touching 
in the extreme. Not many of our race can hear 
them sing for the first time with dry eyes. Their 
consciences are so tender that if they do the least 
thing they think sinful, it becomes such a burden 
to them that they will take no part nor parcel in 
any form of divine worship until confession is 
made to the Church ; then assured of forgiveness, 
they are ready for work in the Master’s vineyard 
again. _ 

“Before the Indians left their homes in the East, 
Presbyterian missionaries were at work among 
them. Rev. Messrs. Copeland, Byington and 
Hotchkin came here with the Choctaws to this 
weird, lonely, desolate looking country, burying 
themselves with these people in these unbroken 
forests in order to teach them that Christ died for 
them, to lead them to believe that the white man’s 
God would also be a loving, merciful Father to 
them if they would accept His teachings—which 


~ 


Indians and Their Territory 151 


numbers have done. More missionaries followed 
those early pioneers ; some have entered into their 
rest beyond, others are still here, laboring under 
many trials, tellmg and teaching of God’s love 
and mercy.” 

The present Secretary made a visit to the Terri- 
tory almost immediately upon his election, and in 
his first published report gave this testimony, 
which has not been changed by any of his subse- 
quent visits and closer scrutiny of thecase: “The 


Indian people are as true and genuine Presbyteri- , 


ans as can befound anywhere on earth. The visit 
of the home mission Secretary to the Indian Pres- 
bytery will always be remembered as a joy for- 
ever. Leaving their homes, the entire Indian com- 
munity was encamped around the church. Each 
Indian Church sends not only an elder to presby- 
tery, but entire families, men, women and children. 
At daybreak the bell rings for sunrise prayer meet- 
ing, conducted by the Indians themselves in the 
Choctaw language. At 9 and 11 a. M., and at 3 
and 7 Pp. M., they have preaching by a Choctaw 
Indian or by a missionary through an interpreter. 
After the last service, at night, the Indian popula- 
tion remains to sing, which they keep up till late 
in the night, and it thrills one’s soul to hear their 
earnest singing of the good old tunes. Most of 
the Indian Churches have service every Sabbath. 


If no minister is present, an elder conducts the 


worship, and they sing and pray with as much en- 
joyment as if a minister were present to preach 
the Gospel.” _ 

f 


ro 


152 At Our Own Door 


In addition to its churches and Sabbath-schools, 
the Southern Church ten years ago began to estab- 
lish Christian schools among the Indians, not only 
to teach ordinary branches of secular education but 
the catechisms of the Church, and the principles of 
the Christian religion. This work has prospered 
and grown from a “day of small things ” to large 
proportions, sustained entirely by the gifts of the 
Sabbath-school children in their fifth Sabbath col- 
lections. Out of this work has grown Durant 
Presbyterian College, a beautiful pressed brick 
building costing $15,000, employing seven teachers 
and having annually 300 students. It is nearly 
self-supporting, but sadly in need of more dormi- 
tories and furniture, being unable to accommodate 
the students proposing to enter its walls, and com- 
pelled each year to turn away many applicants for 
places among its student body. President E. 
Hotchkin deserves the lasting gratitude of the 
Church for his self-denying labors and his indomi- 
table perseverance, which have made this institu- 
tion a success and an honor to the Presbyterian 
Church. It has more students than Henry Ken- 
dall College in the Cherokee Nation, which costs 
the Northern Presbyterian Church $16,000 an- 
nually ; and it does not cost the Southern Church 
$500. | 

At Antlers we have a high school of two 
teachers and 215 scholars; at Cameron, three 
teachers and 135 scholars; at Wapanucka, two 
teachers and 112 scholars. Besides these high 
schools, we have common schools at Goodland, 


Indians and Their Territory 153 


Hugo, Chish Ok’tock, Bennington, Cold Spring, 
Hamden, Tulia Hikia,and Shady Point. More than 
1,200 pupils annually receive instruction at our 
hands, those unable to pay being taught absolutely 
free. Dr. Adoniram Judson passing a Christian in- 
stitution said, “I wish I had a million dollars.” 
A friend remarked, “ If you had it would soon all 
go into foreign missions.” ‘“ No, it would not,” he 
replied ; “I would establish just such a Christian 
institution as this; for such furnish the seed corn 
of the world.” If any philanthropist agrees with 
this estimate of Christian education, will he heed 
and help the effort to establish a Christian indus- 
trial school at Goodland Church where the Indians 
in receiving their allotments are donating a part 
of their land for this purpose; and Mrs. Gibbons 
is appealing for a modest sum to inaugurate the 
movement in this strong recital of facts: 

“Hight years ago, the Southern Board of Home 
Missions reopened the school here, and it has 
steadily grown in numbers until now the enroll- 
ment for this term is 104, sixty-eight being Indian 
children. For several years it has been the desire 
of the church to establish an industrial school 
here, one in which these boys and girls can be 
taught to fit themselves for positions of useful- 
ness, to apply their energies in the right direction. 
Children from other places have been boarded by 
these Christian people, some of them denying 
themselves the comfort of life to give some orphan 
child the benefits of a Christian school. 

“Five years ago, we asked the Indian Council to 


154 At Our Own Door 


appropriate money to board a limited number of 
pupils, and through the influence of Dr. Craig, the 
Home Mission Board promised money to build a 
home for the children, but the council never made 
the appropriation for us until this year, and they 
only allow us seven dollars per month, not more 
than enough to feed them. We have forty Choc- 
taw children boarded by the government, and at 
least a dozen more kept in private homes. 

“ Now, we have the children, but no boarding- 
house. Our schoolroom is very small, devoid of 
furniture, with the exception of some straight 
pine benches. In our church we teach five grades ; 
this building is old, out of repair, very uncomfort- 
able in cold weather. Our boarding-house can 
keep only fifteen, the rest are scattered around in 
different homes; twenty-three are now in the 
home of our good Indian preacher, Silas Bacon. 
Both he and his good wife are giving all their time, 
their talents and their lives, to these children, and 
they keep several orphans that will receive no 
board money, as they came in after the contract 
was full, and Mr. Bacon would not send them 
away. 

“‘ Among our children, the Indian pupils, we have 
thirteen without either parent, twenty-eight with 
only one parent living. Many of these children 
come to us homeless, clothesless, and to a great ex- 
tent, Christless ; coming to us from isolated places, 
where Sunday-schools are unknown. We have 
grown boys and girls who never attended a Sun- 
day-school, never knew a prayer before they came 


Indians and Their Territory 155 


here. (put they are noble children, obedient, studi- 
ous and quiet at all times, ever ready to listen to 
our Bible teaching, to be taught our catechisms 


and to sing our religious songs. Many of them G 


have bright minds, all they need is proper training. 
As a rule the full blood Indian child is easy to 
control, and if one wins their affection they are 
easily led ;—not much trouble to instruct them 
after they learn our language, which they usually 
do in from one to two years. / 

“We are striving to get the Industrial School 
started, and by the advice of Dr. Morris we make 
this appeal to the churches, aid societies, the Sun- 
day-schools and the Christian people of our coun- 
try to help us start it. The land has been promised 
to us by the Indians themselves, if we can get the 
building.” 

Who will hear and respond to this earnest, 
pathetic appeal ? 

This brief sketch would be incomplete without 
an account of the Territory itself, its conditions 
and prospects : 


2. Tuer INDIAN TERRITORY 


0 No section of the United States has been so gen- 
erally misunderstood as the Indian Territory. Many 
geographies are still in existence which describe 
the Western section (now Oklahoma) as a part of 
“The Great American Desert.” This quondam 
“desert” is now covered with golden grain, and 
its rich pasture lands are feeding “ the cattle upon 
a thousand hills.” These prairie lands are in- 


156 At Our Own Door 


exhaustible in fertility, and the most thoroughly 
improved section of the country, making Okla- 
homa and the Indian Territory the paradise of the 
West. It is by no meansall prairie. Great forests 
skirt the plains, composed largely of post-oak groves, 
interspersed with pecans. Rivers and mountains, . 
valleys and hills, cultivated fields and primeval 
forests, mingle together in such proportions not 
only to relieve the monotony, but furnish as beauti- 
ful landscapes as can be found anywhere in our 
country, marvellously rich in rare scenery. The 
traveller crosses the border of the Indian Terri- 
tory, expecting to see the line of demarkation 
very plain between civilization and the land of the 
untutored savage. As the train dashes along, he 
keeps his eye on the window for the first sight of 
“the red man”; but he looks in vain. Where he 
expects to see the Indian hut or little patch of the 
barbarian, he sees broad, cultivated fields, as rich 
in many places as the valley of the Mississippi. 
Where he expects the Indian wigwam, he discovers 
great cities with brick stores and stone banks. One 
can live ten years in the Indian Territory without 
seeing an Indian. They do not haunt the villages 
and have no special yearning for railroads. 
Along the streams and out in the forests there are 
Indians ; but they are such a small per cent. of the 
population as to make the Indian Territory a mis- 
nomer. There is no Indian Territory except on the 
map; and it is almost as great a myth “as the Great 
American Desert.” It is true there are fifty thou- 
sand Indians in the Territory; but, according to 


Indians and Their Territory 157 


the United States census, it contains nearly five 
hundred thousand inhabitants, making ten whites 
to every Indian. It is the whitest section of the 
South! No other Southern State contains ten 
whites to any other citizen! It may surprise many 
people to learn that Arizona contains almost as 
many Indians as the Indian Territory. Many 
other “reservations”? contain even more; for of 
the 250,000 Indians in the United States, only one- 
fifth are in the Territory.4 Even of these 50,000, 
very few are full bloods. The great majority are 
descendants of “half breeds” and as white as the 
average Caucasian. They would scarcely be enu- 
merated as Indians, but for the fact that it gives 
them a claim upon the fine lands that are now 
being allotted to the Indians by the government. 
_ Intermarriage will soon solve the Indian problem 
in the Indian Territory. 

It is said that an Irish historian devoted a chap- 
ter in his History of Ireland to “Snakes.” The 
entire chapter reads, “There are no snakes in Ire- 
land.” The time is not far distant when the his- 
torian will write his chapter on the Indian 
Territory in these words, “There are no Indians 
in the Indian Territory.” 

It has been said that “the Indians are the rich- 
est nation and the poorest people on earth.” The 
strange paradox is true. In their homes they have 
but few of the comforts of life which the indi- 
vidual can enjoy. And yet the vast revenues 
accumulating to their credit and for their benefit 
are enormous and increasing with each passing 


158 At Our Own Door 


year. The sources of these revenues are various. 
The royalty on the coal mines of the Choctaw 
nation amounts to $200,000 yearly. Every white 
man in the Territory is required to pay a “ permit ” 
of five dollars a year for the privilege of living in 
the reservation. These are just specimens of their 
enormous income. This money cannot be dis- 
tributed to the individual. It would be a curse to 
most. But it can be used for the benefit of the 
nation. Consequently, any Indian child who is 
willing can be educated at the public expense. 
Board, tuition, and in many instances clothing and 
all the necessaries of life, are furnished for their 
education and equipment of the children for the 
duties of citizenship. The United States govern- 
ment has schools distributed throughout the coun- 
try, where they are taught; and many religious 
organizations, recognizing that secular education 
without moral training is a curse to them, have 
founded denominational schools for their religious 
instruction. 

The policy of the government in the past, how- 
ever good in intention and worthy in effort to 
discharge its obligations to these wards of the 
nation, has not always been wise, judged by re- 
sults. The system of distributing “rations” in- 
discriminately to needy and otherwise alike, has 
reared a race of paupers, thriftless, idle, and a 
menace to the peace and morality of the country. 
The plan of inducing a child, accustomed to the 
hardships of poverty, to leave a home of wretch- 
edness and enter a government school, where 


Indians and Their Territory 159 


every comfort is provided and every want antici- 
pated, translated suddenly from squalor to com- 
parative luxury, is not calculated to produce the 
highest type of citizen. Education is not in itself 
a panacea for all the ills of life. It is very ques- 
tionable whether it is a blessing in any sense, 
unless carried on along moral and religious as well 
as secular lines. Many of these Indian children 
after several years of luxury and education, re- 
turn to their wretched homes and savage life. 
Under the Dawes Commission, the government 
is pursuing a wiser policy, and will probably solve 
the Indian problem in the near future. This 
commission is allotting the lands now held in com- 
mon, so that each individual will soon come into 
possession of his inheritance and can use it or 
- abuse it, according to his inclination. It is esti- 
mated that each Indian, man, woman (and child 
yet unborn and until the registration books are 
closed), will receive in the allotment over five 
hundred acres (according to value in different sec- 
tions), and can sell all except one hundred and 
sixty acres, which the government requires him to 
keep for twenty-one years as a homestead. Js 
soon as this is done, most of the lands will pass 
into the hands of the white people, the Indians 
retaining only their homestead, which will be 
ample for the needs of most of them. It is often 
asked why the government delays this allotment 
year after year, and thus retards the development 
of the country. Several reasons might be as- 
signed; The Indians themselves are allowed the 


160 At Our Own Door 


privilege of ratifying the terms of the treaties, 
and these must be submitted back and forth be- 
tween Congress and the Indian tribal legislatures. 
A still more potent reason, perhaps, lies in the fact 
that a few influential individuals are enriching 
themselves at the expense of the rest, and have 
sufficient influence to delay the matter. Accord- 
ing to the present system any Indian (or white 
man married to an Indian) may cultivate or use 
all the land fenced or improved by him, and until 
the lands are allotted in severalty. The full blood 
Indian takes little or no advantage of this pro- 
vision. But the mixed breed and white men with 
Indian wives fence in large areas, and are getting 
rich from its use. It is said that one man alone 
has a revenue of $50,000 annually from his “im- 
proved lands.” Just as soon as the allotment is 
made, it can readily be seen that his share will be 
reduced to five hundred acres. These men are 
very naturally opposed to the allotment, and are 
opposing by all means in their power. The value 
of their lands offers a temptation to adventurers 
to marry these Indian girls for the sake of their in- 
heritance. In order to prevent such matrimonial 
investments, the Choctaw Legislature has placed 
the license fee at one thousand dollars for a white 
man to marry an Indian and share the allotment. 
Another law passed by the tribal legislature im- 
poses the penalty of death upon any Indian who 
sells any part of his land to a white man. While 
it is impossible to acquire lands at present, yet the 
United States government has made provision that 


Indians and Their Territory 161 


lots in any incorporated town may be sold to 
aliens. This, however, is only a “quit claim” 
which the purchaser obtains from a citizen; and 
when the commission appears to make titles from 
the United States government, it is necessary to 
pay a small amount to the government and obtain 
the property by “letters patent.” 

The material development of the country is mar- 
vellous. New railroads are not simply being pro- 
jected but are being built, in every direction. 
Coal deposits and oil fields are being discovered, 
and options are being sought by great corporations 
from the tribal legislatures for developing these 
natural resources. This is causing population to 
pour into the Territory from every part of the 
United States. 

It is said that Henry Clay once climbed the Al- 
leghanies and put himself in the attitude of one 
listening, and exclaimed, “I hear the tramp of 
millions; they are the myriads who are to occupy 
and populate our great Western country!” Great, 
prophetic soul, who saw the future glory and de- 
velopment of our country ; and yet it has gone far 
beyond his vivid imagination! /"The human fancy 
can scarcely forecast the future of the Indian 
Territory! The next United States census will 
show fully two millions of people in that great 
section! There are perhaps one hundred towns 
and cities in the Territory to-day, containing, on 
an average more than one thousand inhabitants 
each. They spring into existence under our very 
eyes! Between the visits of the Secretary of 


162 At Our Own Door 


home missions (six months apart), towns had 
sprung up which had no existence in thought at 
the time of the first visit. They are not mush- 
room growths, as one might imagine. They are 
buildings of brick and stone, and, in many in- 
stances, of rare architectural designs. 

It furnishes the Presbyterian church the greatest 
opportunity, perhaps, which will ever come to her 
in the twentieth century. The country is preju- 
diced in favor of the Presbyterian church in many 
sections by reason of the splendid work done in 
behalf of the Indians. Nearly all of these towns 
contain a fair proportion of Presbyterians. It is 
true there are difficulties, and salaries are small ; 
but where is the man, called of God to preach the 
Gospel, who would not choose to spend his ener-- 
gies in the midst of the living masses of unevan- 
gelized people at a sacrifice, amid self-denials, 
rather than in a well feathered nest, and preach to 
empty pews? The writer has stated, again and 
again that if he were at the beginning of his min- 
istry, with his present knowledge of conditions, he 
could not be chained on this side of the Mississippi. 
If the young men will give “the dew of their 
youth ” to the work, and the church will furnish 
the means, we may confidently expect, within a 
few years, that the Synod of the Indian Territory 
will not only be a possibility, but one of the im- 
portant factors in the development of the church, 
and not by any means the least in the sisterhood 
of synods. 


Vill 
THE GREAT WEST 


THE fictitious boundaries of America invented 
to impress the imagination with the idea of vast- 
ness might with better propriety be employed to 
mark the limitations of the West: “Bounded on 
the north by the Aurora Borealis, on the east by the 
rising sun, on the south by the Equator, and on the 
west by the Day of Judgment.” The public 
speaker cannot bring himself in his addresses to 
say tamely “the West”; it is invariably “the 
great West.” No man has succeeded better in im- 
pressing the public with a sense of its greatness 
and importance than Dr. Josiah Strong: “The 
West is characterized by largeness. Mountains, 
rivers, railways, ranches, herds, crops, business 
transactions, ideas; even men’s virtues and vices 
are cyclopean. All seem to have taken a touch of 
vastness from the mighty horizon. Western 
stories are on the same large scale, so large, indeed 
that it often takes a dozen eastern men to believe 
one of them.” 

It is generally supposed that the Mississippi 
River divides the east and west into somewhat 
equal areas. But as a matter of fact the area be- 
yond the Mississippi is two-and-a-half times the 


size of that on the east. To divide our country 
163 


164 At Our Own Door 


into equal parts, it would be necessary to begin at 
the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Mexican 
border and run directly north, throwing a large 
part of Texas on the East and all immediately 
north of it as far as Canada. In present parlance 
the West means everything beyond the Mississippi ; 
but it has not always been the case; and even now 
hundreds of miles beyond the Mississippi, the 
West is still far beyond. 

“Nothing better illustrates the vast and rapid 
expansion of America during the nineteenth cen- 
tury than the history of ‘Sectional Nomenclature.’ 
‘The West’ has had a new definition in every de- 
cade. ‘To the Westward,’ named in the preamble 
of the Connecticut Society, was the State of New 
York, ‘northwestward’ was Vermont. Ofamuch 
earlier period, it is related on good authority that 
a surveyor was commissioned in Massachusetts to 
lay out a highroad from Cambridge towards Al- 
bany, as far as the public good required. His road 
came to an end twelve miles from Boston in the 
town of Weston, and the report made to the 
government was, that the work had been pushed 
into the wilderness as far as the public need would 
ever require. A good many pieces have been 
added to that road, and before each such addition 
‘the West’ has steadily retreated. At different 
times it was on the banks of the Charles, the 
Connecticut and the Hudson; on the shores of the 
Great Lakes, in the Mississippi Valley, on the tops 
of the Rockies, and it stopped at the Pacific only 
because it could go no farther. Beyond that line 


The Great West 165 


the East began again. Nor has this vague con- 
ception for the West been always due to the pro- 
vincial short-sightedness of New England. The 
writer remembers, not twenty years ago, visiting 
a primary school in Southern Wyoming, from 
whose windows the peaks of the Rockies were 
visible. To his question addressed to the children, 
how many of them were born in Wyoming, only 
two hands went up. To the further question, how 
many of them would like to grow up in Wyoming 
and help to make it a grand State, not a hand was 
raised ; and when the catechism was brought to a 
close with the bewildered inquiry, ‘ Where then 
are you going?’ with a united shout they replied 
‘West’ ” (Leavening the Nation). 

The original thirteen states occupied only a thin 
strip of land along the Atlantic coast with unop- 
ened territory stretching towards the Mississippi 
south of the Ohio. From the earliest history of 
the country aggressive men have always been com- 
pelled to wage a fierce conflict with others strenu- 
ously opposing “the annexation of more terri- 
tory.” No event in our national history has ex- 
erted a greater influence on the destiny of the 
country than the famous “Ordinance of 1787.” 
Embracing the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, 
Wisconsin and Illinois, a section of 250,000 square 
miles, wedge-shaped, and from that fact known as 
“the keystone of the American commonwealth,” 
was added to the territory of the United States; 
and from that moment “Expansion” began. Its 
influence on our national life was not more potent 


166 At Our Own Door 


than on the church. It was anew birth of the 
home missionary enterprise of the church, calling 
for “expansion ” of the spiritual kingdom to keep 
pace with the march of empire. Population 
poured in to possess this marvellously rich land. 
Home missionaries entered to win new territory 
for Christ and the church. 

The nineteenth century opened with the Missis- 
sippi River as our western boundary. The Louisi- 
ana Purchase of 1803, the Annexation of Texas in 
1845, the Mexican Treaty of 1848 carried our pos- 
sessions to the Pacific and multiplied our territory 
two and a half times. This created “The Great 
West.” 

“Of the twenty-two states and territories west 
of the Mississippi, only three are as small as all New 
England. Montana would stretch from Boston on 
the east to Cleveland on the west, and extend far 
enough south to include Richmond, Va. Idaho, if 
laid down in the east, would touch Toronto, Can- 
ada, on the north, and Raleigh, North Carolina, on 
the south, whilst its southern boundary line is long 
enough to stretch from Washington City to Colum- 
bus, Ohio; and California, if on our Atlantic Sea- 
board, would extend from the southern line of 
Massachusetts to the lower part of South Carolina, 
or if in Europe, it would extend from London 
across France and well into Spain. New Mexico is 
larger than the United Kingdom of Great Britian 
and Ireland. The greatest measurement of Texas 
is nearly equal to the distance from New Orleans to 
Chicago, or from Chicago to Boston. Lay Texas 


The Great West 167 


on the face of Europe, and this giant with his 
head resting on the mountains of Norway (directly 
east of the Orkney Islands) with one palm cover- 
ing London, the other Warsaw, would stretch him- 
self down across the kingdom of Denmark, across 
the Empire of Germany and Austria, across north- 
ern Italy and lave his feet in the Mediterranean. 
The two Dakotas might be carved into half a 
dozen kingdoms of Greece; or if they were divided 
into twenty-six equal counties, we might lay down 
the two kingdoms of Judea and Israel in each” 
(Our Country). 

In his address to the General Assembly of 1901, 
Dr. C. L. Thompson, Secretary of home missions, 
urged the importance of the west as occupying a 
vital position in the superstructure of the govern- 
ment: “The work of the Central West is to build 
the piers on which the Nation’s weight must rest. 
I looked recently at the new bridge over the East 
River. The shore approaches are long, the cables 
are anchored far back. But standing on granite 
feet out in the river are the great steel piers, that 
will hold the strain of the mighty structure. Our 
national life has long approaches. It is anchored 
far back in traditions and constitutions. But the 
young states of the west must stand like steel 
piers on granite foundations, if the arch of the 
State shall stand secure from shore to shore. 
All honor to the men who build. And when we 
think of the heroes of wars, let us not forget the 
missionaries who toil on disgraceful stipends— 
making Christian the States, that will hold the 


168 At Our Own Door 


balance of power. They are the true nation 
builders.” 

1. In this account of the West it is necessary 
to confine our scrutiny to that section lying within 
the bounds of the Southern Church. Only half a 
century has passed since the Republic of Texas cast 
in its lot among the States of the Union, contain- 
ing at that time about 200,000 people; and it has 
gone forward marvellously, striding in its seven 
league boots to the very front, claiming a popula- 
tion at present of three and a half millions, equal 
to the entire country at the time of the American 
Revolution. The orator is yet unborn who can 
make the average citizen appreciate by means of 
statistics and comparisons anything of its vast 
area, magnificent resources and future possibilities. 

(a) In size it contains 262,000 square miles, 
larger than the North West Territory added by 
the Ordinance of 1787. If Texas were carved up 
into separate States it would make 240 Rhode 
Islands, 112 Delawares, thirty-one Massachusetts, 
six Kentuckies, or four Georgias! Place it east 
of the Mississippi, and it will cover Mississippi, Al- 
abama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina 
and Tennessee. 

(6) The greatness of area is even exceeded by 
the greatness of resources. Her lands are of every 
conceivable variety. Possibly the United States 
contains no soil but can be duplicated by Texas. 
The vast acreage taken as a whole is doubtless the 
richest in the world. Every variety of crops can 
be grown on her fertile valleys and broad prairies. 


The Great West 169 


Her cattle ranches are the marvel of the world. 
Her oil fields just opening up are fabulous. Her 
cotton crop is now larger than the entire cotton 
crop of the United States at the beginning of the 
Civil War. She now furnishes one-third of all the 
cotton raised in the United States, and the time may 
come when she will drive her sister states out of 
the cotton market, and undertake the contract for 
supplying the world. Her minerals are as yet an 
unknown quantity. In 1860, Texas had about 300 
miles of railroad ; at present she has nearly 11,000 
miles, more than any State in the Union except IIli- 
nois and Pennsylvania, which have each about the 
same amount. 

According to Dr. Strong in “Our Country” 
Texas is capable of supporting the entire popula- 
tion of the United States. “ After allowing, say, 
50,000 square miles for ‘ desert,’ Texas could have 
produced all our food crops in 1879—grown as we 
have seen, on 164,215 square miles of land—could 
have raised the world’s supply of cotton, 12,000,000 
bales, at one bale to the acre, on 19,000 square 
miles and then have had remaining for a cattle 
ranch a territory larger than the State of New 
York. Place the population of the United States 
in 1890 all in Texas, and it would not be as dense 
as that of Italy ; and if it were as crowded as Eng- 
land, this one State would contain 129,000,000 
souls!” 

At present her school lands amounting to thou- 
sands of square miles are leased by great cattle 
corporations for the largest ranches in the world, 


170 At Our Own Door 


but the influx of population is crowding westward, 
and as these leases are expiring they are being 
opened up for farming purposes, which will ina 
few years decrease the grazing lands but add im- 
mensely to the agricultural acreage and the popu- 
lation of the country. 

(c) The country has its silver question, negro 
problem, immigration peril, but Texas has prob- 
lems peculiarly her own. Life is at its flood tide 
in Texas. Business opportunities are so great, that 
it is most difficult to hold back the entire popula- 
tion from being engulfed in the vortex of com- 
mercialism. For many years the State has been 
afflicted with a most undesirable type of citizen- 
ship. It has been the asylum for the criminal 
classes from all the older States in the Union. To 
convert them from lawlessness and assimilate them 
into the body politic is no small contract, espe- 
cially as most of them are isolated from the restrain- 
ing and moral influences of home life. Add to 
these the 100,000 Mexicans coming across the 
border with their low standard of morality and 
their idolatrous rites practiced in the name of re- 
ligion, and the problem becomes still more compli- 
cated. 

(d) The church must face all these conditions. 
Yet in spite of these difficulties and obstacles the 
Gospel is having some of its greatest triumphs in 
Texas. Based upon the oldest records of religious 
work in Texas, we gather the following facts : 

Rev. P. H. Fullenwider was the father of Texas 
Presbyterianism ; 


The Great West 171 


Rev. Hugh Wilson, the great organizer and 
teacher ; 

Rey. Dr. Daniel Baker, the great evangelist, who 
laid the foundations of religious work and churches 
in many sections and made Austin College the 
child of his tenderest care ; and Rev. J. W. Miller 
the wise counsellor and teacher. 

From the most humble beginning, consider the 
great progress of Presbyterianism in Texas by a 
comparison of the past fifty years. 

Just fifty years ago—in 1853—when there was 
a total of 72,000 communicants in the Southern 
Presbyterian Church, Texas contained only 700— 
less than one one-hundredth of the whole number. 
In 1903 Texas had over 20,000, out of a total of 
235,000—nearly one-tenth of the whole. Fifty 
years ago Texas contained twenty-five Presby- 
terian ministers and three small presbyteries. 
Now in half a century this little handful, like 
Jacob’s company, has become “two bands.” The 
three presbyteries have grown to ten, and the 
twenty-five ministers have multiplied into 187. In 
this same period the strength of Presbyterianism 
has increased nearly thirtyfold in Texas, while in 
the country east of the Mississippi, it has increased 
only threefold. Presbyterianism has grown twice 
as fast in Texas as the population, the latter in- 
creasing fifteenfold and the Church thirtyfold. 
If we add to this the three thousand communi- 
cants of the Northern Presbyterian Church and 
the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (more than 
equal to the Southern) we may safely say, that 


172 At Our Own Door 


Texas contains fifty thousand Presbyterians. It is 
a matter of great surprise to learn that Texas con- 
tains more Presbyterian churches than any South- 
ern synod, except Virginia, but that synod is com- 
posed of three States, Virginia, West Virginia and 
Maryland. The synod of Virginia leads with 469 
churches, while Texas contains 390. North Caro- 
lina with the largest Presbyterian membership of 
any Southern State is a close second with 386. It 
will thus be seen that no money which has been 
contributed to religious purposes has produced 
more liberal returns than that expended on Texas ; 
and it is now being repaid with compound interest. 
Fifty years ago Texas Presbyterians gave to all 
the causes of benevolence less than $6,000. Now 
in just half a century they are giving $260,000— 
more than fortyfold. By actual calculation Texas 
is leading the whole church in liberality. The 
Synod of Virginia with 43,000 members gives the 
largest aggregate, $423,127, an average of $9.74 
per member. Texas comes next in the total 
amount. Its 20,336 members gave $258,412— 
being $12.21 per member. Kentucky and South 
Carolina have each about the same membership as ~ 
Texas ; yet Kentucky reports only $188,049, and 
South Carolina $144,209. The money expended 
on Texas from the home mission treasury comes 
back to the church with interest, as Texas now con- 
tributes more to foreign missions than she draws 
for her vast home mission field. 

“ Who can count the dust of Jacob, or number 
the fourth part of Israel?” But the time is coming 


The Great West 173 


when Texas will far outnumber Israel in her palm- 
iest days. Texas will one day contain as many 
people as the United States now numbers. If the 
present rate of increase continues, and the church 
can furnish the men and means for still greater 
aggressiveness, we may confidently expect with the 
blessing of God, that the time will come when 
Texas will contain more Presbyterians than can 
be reckoned at present in the entire Southern 
Church... 

In his first address and publication on home 
missions, the present Secretary said: “As goes 
the United States so goes the world ; as goes the 
West so goes the United States; and Texas is a 
tremendous factor in the west ; so that Texas may 
play no mean part in influencing the destiny of the 
world in the future. Alexander the Great wept 
for more worlds to conquer but the Presbyterian 
Church might well be content for awhile, if it 
could conquer the great Empire State of the West 
for Christ.” The east must evangelize Texas, or 
this mighty giant may turn on us a current of un- 
godliness, which will shake the foundations of our 
civilization as the vandal hordes of the north 
overturned the civilization of the Roman Empire. 
In Texas it is now “Flood Tide” and we “ must 
take the current when it serves or lose our ven- 
tures.” Texas is another name for opportunity ; 
and opportunity spells r-e-s-p-o-n-s-i-b-i-lit-y. Ifwe 
wait “till the harvest is past,” “the summer will 
be ended,” and the opportunity gone forever. 

2. Passing by the Indian Territory, the most 


174 At Our Own Door 


promising home mission field in the West, which 
has been considered in connection with the Indians, 
our attention is claimed next by Oklahoma, its 
twin Territory, the newest frontier, whose develop- 
ment reads like a tale of the Arabian Nights. 
Once it was “the Great American Desert,” which 
according to Dr. Strong, “seems to have become 
a fugitive and vagabond on the face of the earth,” 
now it is called Oklahoma, which means “ Beauti- 
ful Land.” Few people perhaps are aware of the 
fact that Oklahoma owes its existence to the 
Southern Confederacy. The Creeks and Seminoles 
held claims upon this territory, but owing to their 
sympathies with the South in the war, the gov- 
ernment decided that these claims were forfeited, 
and their land reverted to the government, and 
became a part of the “ public lands.” It contains 
about 40,000 square miles, being larger than any 
New England State and only one-third less than 
Georgia or Florida, the largest States east of the 
Mississippi. 

Before the northern section was opened in April, 
1889, several organized attempts were made to 
force entrance into this “Beautiful Land” and 
were defeated only by government troops. 

No worse method of opening the country could 
have been devised. At the firing of a signal gun 
at twelve o’clock the mad rush began, and the men 
or women who drove down the first stake had 
legal titles to the lot. Richard Harding Davis at- 
tempts a description of this confusion confounded : 
“These modern pilgrims stand in rows twenty feet 


The Great West 175 


deep, separated from the Promised Land, not by an 
ocean, but by a line scratched in the earth with 
the point of a soldier’s bayonet. The long row 
toeing this line are bending forward, panting with 
excitement, and looking with eager eyes towards 
this new Kingdom ; the women with dresses tucked 
up to their knees, the men stripped of coats and 
waistcoats for the coming race. 

“And then, a trumpet call, answered by a thou- 
sand hungry yells from all along the line, and hun- 
dreds of men and women on foot and on horse- 
back, break away across the prairie, the stronger 
pushing down the weak, and those on horseback 
riding over, and in some instances killing, those on 
foot, in a mad, unseemly race for something they 
are getting for nothing. These pilgrims do not 
drop on one knee to give thanks decorously as did 
Columbus, according to the twenty dollar bills, but 
fall on both knees and hammer stakes into the 
ground, and pull them up again, and drive them 
down somewhere else at the place, which they hope 
will eventually become a corner lot, facing the 
post-office, and drag up the next man’s stake and 
threaten him with a Winchester, because he is on 
their land, which they have owned for the last 
three minutes.” 

In September, 1893, the Cherokee Strip was 
opened in the samesmanner amid still wilder scenes 
while 200,000 fought and struggled at the risk of 
life and limb for “a claim” in this new country. 

Dr. Clark in “Leavening the Nation” gives an 
account of an eye-witness: “The horsemen and 


176 At Our Own Door 


those in light vehicles were lined within a 100 foot 
strip along the border for miles, and the heavier 
teams loaded with merchandise of all sorts, lumber, 
household goods, tents, buildings fitted and ready 
to be put together, barrels of water, stacks of cooked 
food were ranged in the rear to follow the owners 
who were to race for claims and town lots. On 
the railway were forty palace stock cars attached 
to three engines. As this train moved into posi- 
tion, it was literally filled and covered, sides and 
top, with living humanity, as fast as men and 
women impelled by wildest frenzy, could scramble 
into place. Every part of the cow-catchers and 
engines were black:with men anxious to be near 
the front, to jump and get a little advantage. 
Eleven minutes before twelve o’clock, a false sig- 
nal was given, and in less time than I can pen it 
the prairie was alive with the myriad racers. The 
few soldiers were utterly powerless to stop the 
rush, and away in the distance went the wild 
crowd. The rush and the roar of thousands, the 
whistle of engines, and the rumbling of the im-- 
mense trains, the shouts of the excited drivers, the 
noise of the moving wheels, the rearing and tossing 
and neighing of excited horses, the discharge of 
firearms in every direction and the clouds and clouds 
of dust, raised by this moving mass, all conspired 
to make impressions from those who witnessed 
the grand and awful scene, never to be erased. 
Thousands of men and some women jumped or rolled 
or fell from the train, running at the rate of twelve 
or fifteen miles an hour, to secure a claim or lot. 


The Great West 177 


Some broke an arm or leg or both; a few were 
killed. Many got more real estate upon their faces 
and persons than they had to keep, or sell that 
night. Others were rewarded by getting splendid 
claims and valuable lots for their efforts and risks. 
The Rock Island Right of Way is fenced through 
the strip with a five wired barbed fence. Through 
this, most found a serious difficulty in making their 
way. I saw one man with a big piece out of his 
trousers; he said he hung on the fence and vainly 
struggled to extricate himself, while a woman 
crawled through and got the claim he was after. 
One man leaped the fence, struck his flag in a 
choice piece of ground, and then pulled out a skirt 
and sun-bonnet from under his coat and donned 
them. Women’s rights are respected on the western 
plains, he argued with himself. Two young men 
and a young woman raced for thesameclaim. She 
caught in a fatal wire. The rival male claimants 
staked at the same moment. They then ran and 
extricated the struggling lass, took her stake and 
drove it into the ground, pulled theirs up, lifted their 
hats and went to seek other quarter sections.” 
“The Minute Man on the Frontier ” enriches the 
description with the following incident: “In one 
case a portly woman, taking the tortoise plan of 
slow and steady, reached the best section, while 
the men still hung in the fence like victims of a 
butcher bird. It is said of one young woman, who 
made the run on horseback, that reaching a town 
site her horse stumbled and she was thrown vio- 
lently to the ground and stunned. A passing man 


178 At Our Own Door 


jumped off his horse and sprinkled her face with 
water from his canteen; and as she revived, the 
first thing she said was, ‘ This is my lot.’ 

“<No, you don’t,’ said the man. But to settle it 
they went to law, and the court decided in favor 
of the woman, as she struck the ground first.” 

The Southern section was opened in August, 
1901, the towns and their sites being sold at public 
auction and the quarter sections assigned by lot- 
tery. Men were compelled to make oath that they 
were not owners of land elsewhere. They regis- 
tered at E] Reno and Lawton for the drawing, and 
the man drawing the first number was allowed to 
take choice of sections, etc. The lots of the pro- 
spective town of Lawton, at that time a prairie, 
sold at auction for $600,000. The present Secre- 
tary of home missions visited Lawton two months 
after entering office and saw the town a month old, 
variously estimated at from 10,000 to 20,000 thou- 
sand people. Banks, newspapers, barrooms and 
churches began their career under tents; and lum- 
ber was selling at $30 a thousand. Of the eighty 
barrooms which sprang up like magic, one adver- 
tised itself handsomely at the expense of the tem- 
perance crusader, as flying from the tent pole its 
flag announced: “All Nations Welcome Except 
Carrie.” 

Munsey’s Magazine for May, 1903, gives the fol- 
lowing origin of the town of Thomas: On board 
an excursion train going into Oklahoma, a Town 
Site Commission was formed. The train was 
stopped at a suitable place, and the site laid out. 


The Great West 179 


Before night the town had a saloon, a grocery, a 
half-dozen law offices, and a daily paper issued 
from its own plant! The present taxable value of 
Oklahoma is $60,000,000; whilst the wheat crop 
of 1902 amounts to 25,000,000 bushels and the corn 
crop 60,000,000. During 1902 at least 30,000 peo- 
ple settled in the Territory. 

The Committee which appeared before Congress 
to urge Statehood was able to make the following 
showing: 

Without including the Indian Territory the new 
State would exceed twelve States of the Union in 
size and nine in population, while in resources it 
could boast 144 banks, twenty-two daily newspa- 
pers, a University and 1,500 miles of railroad. 

Dr. Clark in “ Leavening the Nation” sums up 
the religious progress of Oklahoma as follows: 

“ Let it be remembered that this Territory is only 
thirteen years old. ‘The oldest girl born in Okla- 
homa is not out of short dresses.’ Between 1890 
and 1900 the population advanced from 61,834 to 
398,245, a gain of 500 per cent., surpassing all other 
records for that decade, and probably for any dec- 
ade in the history of American settlement. The 
growth of religious forces has kept pace with the 
march of population. Already Oklahoma has 200 
religious organizations, representing a church mem- 
bership of over 6,000. More than eighty Congre- 
gational churches have been planted, with their Sun- 
day-schools, Endeavor Societies, and their more than 
3,000 communicants. Thirty Presbyterian churches 
have taken a good start. Baptists, Methodists and 


180 At Our Own Door 


Episcopal missions are represented by fifty more. 
Colleges and academies have sprung up in the path 
of these religious movements, as they always will.” 

The Southern Church only entered the field in 
1902 and is confining its operations to the newer 
southern section. Its evangelists have already or- 
ganized several churches, and are preaching regu- 
larly at other stations. 

“The Minute Man on the Frontier” says, “A 
church could be organized every day in the year, 
and not trespass on any one’s work.” The desti- 
tution. may be judged by this fact stated by Dr. 
Doyle: “In one western State, in 1901, the Presby- 
terian Church entered seven regions in which up 
to that time no church of any kind had been doing 
any religious work.” 

The success of home missions in the west is evi- 
dent from the fact that Secretary Thompson of the 
Presbyterian Church acknowledges that nine- 
tenths of all their churches are of home missionary 
origin; and the Presbyterian Church for that rea- 
son is especially strong in the West. 

3. New Mexico is part of the Territory, ceded 
by Mexico to the United States in the Treaty of 
1848, and an area larger than all of New England 
and New York combined. It shares with Florida 
the honor of being the oldest country settled in 
the United States, dating back within forty years 
of the discovery of America by Columbus. The 
oldest house in the United States is said to be lo- 
cated in Santa Fé, the capital and second oldest 
City in America. The writer a few years ago in 


The Great West 181 


studying the comparative religious statistics of the 
census of 1890 was amazed to find that New Mex- 
ico stood at the very head of the list of states, in 
having the largest church membership in propor- 
tion to population. The explanation lies in the 
fact that the whole country is nominally Roman 
Catholic. It is really a foreign land in the United 
States and differs very little from Mexico itself, 
containing together with Texas most of the Mex- 
icans in the United States. It is the home like- 
wise of the Pueblo Indians, 8,000 in number, a 
quiet, peaceable people, whose religion is a mixture 
of Catholicism and paganism. It possesses a pe- 
culiar order of religious fanatics called Penitentes, 
probably the successors of the old Spanish Flagel- 
lants, who early came into this country, with as- 
cetic practices and superstitious ceremonies. On 
Good Friday it is said they carry a huge cross to 
a distant hill and represent in a rude way the cru- 
cifixion of Christ; it is sometimes even charged 
that they have crucified one of theirnumber. Few 
Americans know perhaps that the Passion Play is 
thus coarsely represented in our own land. They 
strip themselves to the waist and lash themselves 
with whips until the blood flows freely, and some 
have died under these self-inflicted scourges. 

It is a beautiful country of mountains and val- 
leys, caflons and parks; the climate is dry and 
salubrious attracting many invalids in search of 
health. Its precious metals are valuable and its 
fruits among the finest in the world. On account 
of the scarcity of rainfall the crops are confined to 


182 At Our Own Door 


the valleys, but are capable of supporting any num- 
ber of cattle and sheep. Here the Montezumas 
ruled the most civilized and enlightened of all the 
aborigines. Here the Spaniards and Catholics 
have ruled for 300 years without making any ad- 
vance in science, industry, education or religion. 
At the time it became a part of American Terri- 
tory it possessed but one school in all its wide do- 
mains. It furnishes a fine field for foreign mis- 
sions at home among its 122,000 population. The 
Presbyterian Church has established a number of 
splendid schools that are leavening and elevating 
gradually the whole Territory. 

Rev. Joseph B. Clark sums up the result of re- 
ligious effort in the following language: 

“Presbyterian missions in New Mexico reflect 
honor upon the wisdom and diligence of their 
Board. Their work includes three presbyteries 
in the Synod of New Mexico, sixty-two organized 
congregations,—of which twenty-seven are Amer- 
ican, twenty-nine Mexican,—with a total member- 
ship of 3,500. There are thirty-eight ordained 
missionaries, twenty-two evangelists and helpers, 
sixty commissioned teachers and 1,500 enrolled 
pupils. These congregations have raised during the 
past year $29,000 for missions and church expenses. 

“Methodists show a total of sixty organizations, 
forty-two churches, and 2,500 communicants. Bap- 
tists, Congregationalists and Episcopalians are 
doing a smaller work, but of the same kind, educa- 
tional and religious combined, and with constant 
and most cheering tokens of success.” 


The Great West 183 


The conditions in Arizona do not differ essen- 
tially from those found in New Mexico; this same 
mixed population, only larger relative proportion 
of American settlers, drawn thither by the richer 
mines and larger possibilities of the soil. 

The Southern Church entered the field a few 
years ago and met with immediate success, but 
from lack of funds to prosecute the work has not 
pushed it aggressively. Being a part of our own 
Southland there is a tremendous obligation upon 
us to give this vast section the gospel. To the 
searching question of the Master, “ Where is the 
Mexican, thy brother ?” will we repudiate the obli- 
gation by saying, “ Am I my brother’s keeper ?” 

This brief review but touches “The Great West ” 
at one or two points as specimens. But “ what can 
the man do that cometh after the king?” It 
would seem almost presumption to attempt to add 
to the forecast of Dr. Strong on the future of the 
West: 

“Beyond a peradventure, the West shall domi- 
nate the East. With more than twice the room 
and resources of the East, the West will probably 
have twice the population and wealth of the East, 
together with the superior power and influence 
which, under popular government, accompany 
them. The West will elect the executive and con- 
trol education. When the centre of population 
crosses the Mississippi, the West will have a 
majority in the Lower House, and sooner or later 
the partition of her great Territories, and probably 
some of the States, will give to the West the con- 


184. At Our Own Door 


trol of the Senate. When Texas is as densely 
peopled as New England, it is hardly to be sup- 
posed that her millions will be content to see the 
62,000 square miles east of the Hudson send twelve 
senators to the seat of government, when her terri- 
tory of 262,000 sends only two. The West will 
direct the policy of the government, and by virtue 
of her preponderating population and influence 
will determine our national character, and, there- 
fore, destiny. 

“Since prehistoric times populations have moved 
steadily westward, as De Tocqueville said, ‘as if 
driven by the mighty hand of God.’ And follow- 
ing their migrations the course of empire, which 
Bishop Berkeley sang, has westward taken its way. 
The world’s sceptre passed from Persia to Greece, 
from Greece to Italy, from Italy to Great Britain, 
and from Great Britain the sceptre is to-day de- 
parting. It is passing on to ‘Greater Britain,’ to 
our Mighty West, there to remain, for there is no 
further west; beyond is the Orient. Like the 
star in the East, which guided the three kings 
with their treasures westward, until it stood still 
over the cradle of the infant Christ, so the star of 
empire, rising in the East has ever beckoned the 
wealth and power of the nations westward, until 
to-day it stands still over the cradle of the young 
Empire of the West, to which the nations are 
bringing their offerings. 

“The West is to-day an infant, but shall be a 
giant, in each of whose limbs shall unite the 
strength of many nations.” 


Ix 
THE PROBLEM OF MISSIONS—FOES 


CuuRcH history has impressed no lesson more 
forcibly than the fact, that it is easier to evan- 
gelize a nation than to maintain the purity of the 
truth. It is easier to conquer a country for Christ 
than to hold it for Christ. Where is Jerusalem, 
the Mother Church? Where is Antioch, that sent 
out Paul and Barnabas, the first distinctive foreign 
missionaries? Where is the Church of Asia Minor, 
that had its Ephesus, Smyrna, Philadelphia, etc. ? 
Where is North Africa, with her great churches of 
Alexandria, Hippo, etc., that contained in the 
early days of Christianity a thousand (Presbyte- 
rian) bishops? In all the region around the Medi- 
terranean, where Christianity had its earliest and 
grandest triumphs, in all Bible Lands, Mohammed- 
anism has uprooted Christianity, and from hun- 
dreds of minarets and towers 200,000,000 followers 
of the “false Prophet” hear the call: “God is 
God and there is no God but God, and Mohammed 
is His prophet.” Geneva, the home of John Cal- 
vin, is now the home of Rationalism. The origi- 
nal Presbyterian Church of England is now Uni- 
tarian. Many of the largest sections of the once 
Christian church are now apostate and anti- 


Christ. 
185 


186 At Our Own Door 


Will history repeat itself in the United States ? 
It may be thought that in our “ Christian country ” 
with its splendid civilization, material development 
and great religious organizations, there is no 
danger of degeneration ; and yet the danger may 
lie just in the direction of our splendid civilization 
and material .progress. The church is being over- 
organized and cumbered with machinery till in 
danger of breaking beneath its own weight. 
Machinery is being substituted for spirituality. 
Culture is more in evidence than piety. The 
church is becoming “rich and increased with 
goods” and in danger of becoming satisfied. 
Commercialism and worldliness are sapping in 
many places the life of the church. As long as 
the church was poor and persecuted she was spirit- 
ual and aggressive. As soon as Constantine en- 
throned her in the palace of the Czsars, she lost 
her spirituality and power largely, ceasing to bear 
witness to the truth. The logical result was 
“The Dark Ages”; the remedy was “The Refor- 
mation.” 

It may be that America is the world’s last great 
problem. It may be that here the forces of good 
and evil are gathering for a last gigantic struggle, 
the spiritual Arma-Geddon. Are we not already 
in the midst of perilous times? Is not the adver- 
sary already marshalling his forces for the fray ? 
Intemperance, that annually fills a hundred thou- 
sand graves with its victims and consumes a billion 
dollars of the country’s wealth, is a huge monster 
of iniquity, but is not the most dangerous foe of 


The Problem of Missions—Foes 187 


Christianity. It is an open, avowed, hideous evil. 
The more subtle, dangerous foe is Satan trans- 
formed into “An Angel of light,” not so much 
anti-Christ as a false Christ, offering a substitute 
for the Gospel of Christ, preaching “another 
Gospel which is not another.” The struggle for 
this country is fierce and uncompromising, between 
good and evil, between Satan propagating his 
“ gospel of dirt ” by false prophets, and Christianity 
propagating its faith by home missions. 

Has the world ever witnessed such a propaganda 
of falsehood as the Christian Science craze? A 
woman of questionable reputation, divorced from 
her husband, discovers a new gospel in 1866, which 
she promulgates at Boston. Laughed at and ridi- 
culed at first on account of its absurdities and 
questionable morality, it at length becomes a fad 
among a certain type of society women for the lack 
of better employment and newer sensational ex- 
citement. Just the opposite of the Gospel of 
Christ which was “preached to the poor,” this 
spurious gospel is preached almost exclusively to 
the indolent rich. Propagated chiefly by women 
preachers and so-called “ healers,” who have made 
merchandise of souls and grown rich by practicing 
on nervous, hysterical and credulous people, ac- 
cepted at first largely by cranks and unbalanced 
minds, it has obtained a foothold in almost every 
section of the country. The Christ of God “had 
not where to lay His head,” and was crucified by 
the world. This false Christ of Boston has amassed 
millions of dollars by the sale of her book (which 


188 At Our Own Door 


must always be purchased as a condition of being 
healed, making her “healers” without exception 
her book agents); and she herself has been deified 
as “Our Mother,” as much an object of idolatrous 
worship by her dupes as is “Our Lady” by 
papists. 

Asa system of philosophy (“ science, falsely so 
called”), it is heathen Pantheism, redressed in 
semi-religious garb, and baptized under a new 
name. It is a false gospel that denies the exist- 
ence of sin, which in theory denies, and in practice 
admits, the existence of pain, which merges self in 
God and converts God into a sentimental “ Father- 
hood and Motherhood,” which takes away from us 
a personal Christ and gives us an abstract idea in- 
stead. Its rapid spread cannot be accounted for 
upon any rational principle, for it is contrary to 
reason. It is a delusion of the devil that spreads 
as contagion. It manifests that zeal which is so 
characteristic of falsehood. 

Its literature is plaguing the country like the 
frogsof Egypt. Our railroad depots are flooded and 
public libraries are infested with it. In one of our 
great cities “The Public Library,” founded by 
philanthropists and public spirited citizens now in 
their graves, has been prostituted by its present 
directors in the service of this slime of the pit, and 
over the door of this Public Building the writer 
saw in flaming characters “Christian Science 
Reading Room.” During one of the largest State 
Fairs in the South, where the crowd was esti- 
mated at 40,000 people, the writer saw no evangel- 


The Problem of Missions—Foes 189 


ical church distributing the principles of its faith, 
but there were the propagators of this substitute 
for the gospel, thrusting their literature into the 
faces of all passers-by. 

Mark Twain may laugh it out of court, philos- 
ophers may demonstrate its absurdity, preachers 
of the gospel may show that it is utterly subver- 
sive of the gospel and morality, the funerals of its 
“patients” and the death of its devotees may be 
in evidence in every community ; and yet it goes 
on unblushingly denying the existence of suffering 
and sin, collecting its fees from fresh victims, and 
making new converts by a species of hypnotism 
peculiarly itsown. The Church cannot longer af- 
ford to ignore it, the faintest toleration of it is un- 
faithfulness to the Truth, and to Christ. The 
Church must meet it squarely and unhesitatingly, 
by teaching the truth which neutralizes it ; and by 
its home mission operations in occupying the 
ground, effectually shut it out of new communi- 
ties and circumscribe the sphere of its operations. 

“Out of the mouth of the false prophet ”—the 
time was when the application of this language 
pointed to Mohammed. The church has come to 
recognize the fact that no individual can embody 
within himself exclusively the character and office 
of “ False Prophet.” He is the teacher of a false 
gospel, whether Mohammed, Swedenborg, Madame 
Blavatsky, Mary Baker Glover Eddy, or Joseph 
Smith, the founder of the “ Church of the Latter 
Day Saints,” popularly known as Mormonism. 

The history of the latter is unique. Rev. Solo- 


‘ 


190 At Our Own Door 


mon Spaulding, a Presbyterian minister, adopted 
the fanciful theory that the Indians were the de- 
scendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, and 
constructed a romance, embodying and maintain- 
ing that idea entitled “The Manuscript Found.” 
It was written in imitation of Scripture language, 
containing frequently such expressions as “It 
came to pass.” Having tried in vain to find a pub- 
lisher, this manuscript lay several years in the 
office of the Presbyterian Banner. Sidney Rig- 
don, a Baptist minister, employed in the Banner 
office and afterwards a prominent Mormon, had 
this manuscript in possession for a time and made 
a copy of it. 

In some way it came into the possession of Jo- 
seph Smith, an obscure and illiterate man, native 
of Vermont, then residing near Palmyra, New 
York. Pretending to have been divinely guided 
by celestial visions and voices, he claimed to have 
found certain golden plates, which were written 
in “Egyptian,” but translated by himself and 
given to the world as the “ Book of Mormon,” the 
Bible of the Latter Day Saints. If anything can 
be proved by evidence, there can never be the 
shadow of a doubt, that the romance written by 
Spaulding and the Book of Mormon by Joseph 
Smith are one and thesame. It wasso asserted at 
the time by numbers of persons in that community 
who had access to both. It was testified by Mrs. 
McKinstry, the daughter of Spaulding. The evi- 
dence was so damaging that one Hurlburt, accord- 
ing to the sworn statement of Mrs. McKinstry, 


The Problem of Missions—Foes 191 


borrowed the original manuscript under the pre- 
tense of comparing it with the Book of Mormon. 
The manuscript was destroyed, probably in the in- 
terest of Mormonism, and the evidence led to the 
conclusion that Hurlburt was himself a Mormon. 

“The Book of Mormon has been supplemented 
by ‘The Book of Doctrines and Covenants.’ This 
book contains the revelations to Joseph Smith and 
Brigham Young. These, with the Bible, form the 
Mormon Scriptures. They consider the Old Tes- 
tament as being specially for the Jews, the New 
Testament for the Judaic and European Christian 
Church, the Book of Mormon for the American 
Christian Church, and the Book of Doctrines and 
Covenants specially for themselves. 

“The history of the development and spread of 
Mormonism has been most remarkable. The Mor- 
mon religion, if it may be so called, began with the 
experiences and achievements of Joseph Smith. 
January 18, 1829, he married Emma Hale against 
her parents’ wishes. The Mormon church was or- 
ganized April 6, 1830, at Fayette, Seneca County, 
New York, at the home of a convert named Whit- 

‘mer. Six members were enrolled—the prophet, 
two of his brothers, two Whitmers and Oliver 
Cowdery, a school-teacher. Cowdery had become 
Smith’s amanuensis in 1829. On May 15, 1829, 
by the command of an angelic messenger, who 
called himself John the Baptist, Smith baptized 
Cowdery and Cowdery baptized him. Afterwards 
they ordained each other to the Aaronic Priest- 
hood. Smith later received the Melchizedec 


192 At Our Own Door 


Priesthood from the apostles, John, James and 
Peter. In December, 1830, Sidney Rigdon, who 
had secured for Smith the copy of ‘The Manuscript 
Found,’ announced himself as a convert. ‘ Rig- 
don was erratic, but eloquent ; self opinionated, but_ 
versed in the Scriptures ; and in literary culture 
and intellectual force was the greatest man among 
the early Mormons.’ From this point on the sect 
grew very rapidly ” (Dr. Sherman Doyle). 
Various places became the rendezvous of the 

saints. From Kirkland, Ohio, to Jackson County, 
Mo., they passed. Driven from community to 
community till finally they founded Nauvoo on 
the Mississippi. Joseph Smith continued to receive 
“revelations,” and when at Nauvoo the spiritual 
wife doctrine was announced it caused great indig- 
nation. The office building of the Expositor, 
the opposition paper to Mormonism was burned. 
Redress was sought in court, and finally Joseph 
Smith, the leader, was thrown into prison at Car- 
thage, Mo., where a mob attacked the jail, and 
Smith was murdered. It was exceedingly unfor- 
tunate ; for it converted a fakir into a martyr. It 
aroused the saints and gave them a stronger and 
wiser leader in Brigham Young, who led them 
overland a journey of 1,100 miles to Utah, where 
they established a flourishing colony in the beauti- 
ful valley of the Great Salt Lake. They organized 
the State of “Deseret” signifying the “ Honey 
Bee,” but on account of its polygamous practices it 
was refused admission to the Union. The United 
States organized it into a Territory, but it required 


The Problem of Missions—Foes 193 


government troups to maintain the authority of 
the National Government. The State of Utah has 
been recently admitted to the Union, upon the 
adoption of a constitution forbidding polygamy, 
but it is still encouraged and practiced. With 
Mormon juries, courts and officials it is almost im- 
possible to convict a polygamist. 

Ecclesiastically, it is a hierarchy of the most 
despotic order. It is both church and state, whose 
ambition is to control the National Government, 
as effectually as it dominates Utah. Tithing is es- 
tablished by law and binding upon every member 
of the Mormon Church. This brings in an enor- 
mous income of $1,000,000 annually for the sup- 
port of the machine and for the propagation of 
their faith in other sections. As an organization 
it controls its members as completely as the Jesuit 
Order and by methods as disreputable. Brigham 
Young decided that a lie might be told in the in- 
terest of the church. Each must spend several 
years in missionary work if commanded. They 
“say to one man go, and he goeth, and to another 
man come, and he cometh.” Their agents are all 
over the world, making proselytes, shipping them 
to Utah, who must refund such expenses as soon 
as possible. 

The writer and friends met one in Berne, Switzer- 
land, in 1895. After a most gushing welcome to 
his countrymen from America, with many expres- 
sions of pleasure at the meeting, the following con- 
versation took place almost verbatim : 

“What is your occupation here in Switzerland ? ” 


194 At Our Own Door 


“T am a missionary.” 

“What church do you represent ?” 

“The church of the Latter Day Saints.” 

Our telltale countenances expressive of disap- 
pointment and disgust caused this “missionary ” 
immediately to add : 

“ And I am very proud of my church.” 

Whereupon, Dr. W. T. Thompson, now of Wash- 
ington, D. C., ventured to inquire, “Are you 
equally proud of the Mountain Meadow Massacre ?” 
To which he promptly replied: “The public has 
never understood our position in that affair. We 
heard a report that this party had formed an alli- 
ance with the Indians to murder our people. So 
we killed them as we believed in self-defense.” As 
we all boarded the train for Geneva, he excused 
himself from our company, saying he always trav- 
elled third-class, and remarked, “ the only reason 
Ido not travel fourth-class is because there is no 
fourth-class.” 

The Presbyterians, Baptists and Congregational- 
ists have issued an Indictment of “Ten Reasons 
Why Christians Cannot Fellowship with the Mor- 
mon Church,” which has been condensed by Dr. J. 
B. Clark as follows : 


“1. The Mormon Church unchurches all 
Christians. 


2. The Mormon Church places the Book of 
Mormon and the Book of Doctrines 
and Covenants on a par with the 
Bible, equally inspired and binding. 


The Problem of Missions—Foes 195 


3. The Mormon Church makes Joseph Smith 
a Prophet of God, and all who reject 
him, heretics. 


4. The Mormon Church makes faith in the 
Mormon Priesthood essential to salva- 
tion, and denial of its authority a 
damnable sin. 


5. The Mormon Church teaches a doctrine 
of God that is anti-scriptural, dishonor- 
able to the divine Being and debasing 
to man. 


6. The Mormon Church teaches that Adam 
is God, and that Jesus Christ is his son 
by natural generation. 


7. The Mormon Church is polytheistic. It 
teaches the plurality of gods. 

8. The Mormon Church teaches an anti- 
biblical doctrine of salvation. 


9. The Mormon Church believes in polyg- 
amy. The doctrine is to them both 
sacred and fundamental. 


10. The Mormon Church teaches that God is 
a polygamist” (Leavening the Nation). 


“Tf there be any doubt as to the designs of the 
Mormons, let the testimony of Bishop Lunt be 
conclusive on that point. Heé said in 1880: ‘Like 
a grain of mustard seed was the truth planted in 
Zion ; and it is destined to spread through all the 
world. Our church has been organized only fifty 
years, and yet behold its wealth and power. This 
is our year of jubilee. We look forward with per- 
fect confidence to the day when we will hold the 


196 At Our Own Door 


reins of United States Government. That is our 
present temporal aim ; after that, we expect to con- 
trol the Continent.’ When told that such a scheme 
seemed rather visionary, in view of the fact that 
Utah cannot gain recognition as a state, the Bishop 
replied: ‘Do not be deceived; we are looking 
after that. We do not care for these territorial 
officials sent out to govern us. They are nobodies 
here. We do not recognize them, neither do we 
fear any practical interference by Congress. We 
intend to have Utah recognized as a State. To- 
day we hold the balance of political power in 
Idaho, we rule Utah absolutely, and in a very short 
time, we will hold the balance of power in Ari- 
zona and Wyoming’ ” (Our Country). 

Socially, Mormonism is a blot upon our country 
and a disgrace to civilization ; politically it is a 
menace to any government; religiously it is a delu- 
sion, but propagated with the characteristic zeal 
of the fanatic and bigot. 

It is a well-known fact that they have recently 
acquired vast tracts of land in northern Mexico 
and are now undertaking to plant colonies on 
them. 

If they were content to confine their operations 
to the West that would be peril enough for our 
country, but they are invading the East, and oper- 
ating in all parts of the world, having an aggre- 
gate membership at present of three hundred 
thousand. Presbyterians send twenty-two mission- 
aries to Utah; whilst the Mormons send 2,000 to 
every nook and corner of our country ! 


The Problem of Missions—Foes 197 


“Mormonism makes practically no proselytes 
among its gentile neighbors. Its progress is the 
result of its persistent missionary work. In 1901 
officers of the Mormon Church claimed that from 
1,400 to 1,900 emissaries of the church of the 
Latter Day Saints were in the field. The East is 
permeated with their influence. They enter a 
Christian Church in Harlem, New York, and their 
specious arguments capture members and officers 
of its Christian Endeavor Society, who forthwith 
emigrate to Utah; they call from house to house 
in Pennsylvania, and even the descendants of 
Scotch Covenanters are not proof against their 
wiles ; they penetrate the coves of the Blue Ridge 
and the Alleghanies, seeming Angels of Light 
to the secluded inhabitants. They take service in 
families, the better to carry forward their work. 
A Mormon butler actually induced sixty servant 
girls to go to Utah by the promise of husbands 
and homes. 

“The English manufacturing towns are promising 
fields. The people are ignorant, superstitious and 
poor, and the offer of a building lot, or a farm, is 
very attractive. In the six years beginning with 
1840, 3,750 Mormon immigrants came from Great 
Britain alone. No law can prevent this unless the 
incomers admit that they are polygamists—and 
that contingency, of course, is carefully guarded 
against. In fact, the doctrine of polygamy is 
usually kept in the background, if not denied, 
until a new convert reaches Utah. ‘When we 
dare,’ said an apostle, speaking of missionary work 


198 At Our Own Door 


in Japan, ‘we preach the doctrine of plural mar- . 
Waser 224. 

“Three hundred American mormons are reported 
as attending the dedication of a Mormon Temple 
in Copenhagen. The Book of Mormon has been 
translated unto fourteen different languages, in- 
cluding German, French, Danish, Italian, Dutch, 
Welsh, Swedish, Spanish, Hawaiian, Hindostanee, 
Maori, Samoian and Tahitian” (Under Our Flag). 

One of the great dailies in Atlanta recently an- 
nounced that there are more Mormon elders at 
work in Georgia than Presbyterian ministers. The 
writer was in Baltimore recently and read a call 
in one of the papers for a meeting of ministers 
and others interested, to take action in regard to 
Mormons preaching in that city ; and he stood on 
the streets of Macon, Ga., and saw the Great Mor- 
mon Convention, as it adjourned, and watched 
them as they scattered two by two in all directions 
to propagate their infamous doctrines. Once they 
glided stealthily, through rural districts, and fron- 
tier settlements, but now they preach boldly on the 
streets of Atlanta and infest our great cities and 
the very strongholds of our faith. To counteract 
and thwart them, is one special mission of home 
missions. The Presbyterians and Congregation- 
alists are gaining a foothold in Utah by means of 
schools and missions; but it is too late to send 
missionaries after the proselytes have been shipped 
to Utah. The Church must meet these emissaries 
in every community. Other communities must be 
preempted against them by being occupied for 


The Problem of Missions—Foes 199 


Christ so thoroughly through home missions, that 
these emissaries will find an uncongenial atmos- 
phere. 

“ Why did not the Mormons effect a settlement 
in Illinois or Missouri, where they first attempted 
to found a home for their pernicious doctrine and 
strange practices? Because the ground was oc- 
cupied by a better class of citizens who abhorred 
the vicious tenets of the Mormons and bitterly 
opposed their progress. So this anomalous sect 
sought a home farther west where the foot of the 
white man had hardly trod. There they created 
a great commonwealth of ignorant and fanatic 
people under the absolute control of unscruplous 
leaders, whose disregard of sound morals is 
equalled only by their contempt for civil law” 
(Rev. P. H. Gwinn). 

If it is true as stated by Oliver Wendell Holmes 
that the training of a child should begin a hun- 
dred years before it is born, then the time to pre- 
pare our communities against Mormonism is before 
they make their appearance on the scene. No 
method will be effectual till the Church in its home 
mission operation exceeds the zeal of the false 
apostles of this unscrupulous sect. If men are 
zealous for falsehood, why is it Christians are not 
more zealous for the truth ? 

This chapter devoted to an exposé of the enemy 
has dealt with only two types, as specimens. Time 
would fail to tell of Theosophists, who under the 
guise of “ Brotherhood of man ” are seeking to in- 
troduce into our country the old effete heathen 


200 At Our Own Door 


Buddhism of the East. One of our cities in 
Georgia contains an organization of Theosophists 
one hundred strong; and they have established 
under the leadership of Catherine Tingley an in- 
stitution in California for the propagation of this 
form of heathenism in the United States. Time 
would fail to tell of Spiritualists, Socialists, An- 
archists, Dowieites and other foes, which antago- 
nize the church and threaten godliness. 

It is time the church were girding up her loins 
and preparing to meet the enemy, which is “com- 
ing in like a flood,” if she is not only to capture 
this country, but hold it for Christ. It is neces- 
sary to contend not only for the faith, but for our 
fair land, our home, our civilization and our relig- 
ion. This is the object of home missions; to meet 
the enemy at every point; to give the Gospel to 
every community; to plant a church in every lo- 
cality ; until every dark valley is illumined, and 
every mountain-top crimsoned with the glory of 
the Gospel of Christ. 

It must be home missions for America now ; or 
it may be that foreign missionaries from Japan or 
New Zealand must come in the coming centuries 
to tell the story of the Cross in our apostate land. 


x 
WOMAN’S WORK—FRIENDS 


WILL the noble, self-sacrificing women of the 
Church of Christ allow the Secretary of the As- 
sembly’s home missions to speak a word to their 
hearts for the cause of ourcommon Lord? Will 
you consider this appeal individually for your sym- 
pathy, prayers and help in the great cause of home 
missions? Will you, if possible, read this chapter 
at any of the meetings of your Ladies’ Societies, 
and let them consider whether they cannot divide 
their gifts for the cause of Christ, so as to include 
the self-denying men who toil in the slums of our 
cities, among the destitute mountain regions and 
the scattered multitudes of the West? Is there 
not here and there a company of women who 
could undertake the support of a home missionary 
for the Indian Territory, Oklahoma or Texas ? 

“Now, there stood by the Cross of Jesus His 
mother, and His mother’s sister, Mary the wife of 
Cleophas, and Mary Magdalene ”—and woman has 
been standing by His Cause ever since! 

1. It is a question of great interest to us who 
love to dwell upon and study each circumstance in 
the life of Christ, how He was sustained during 
His public ministry, from His baptism of consecra- 
tion at its beginning until His baptism of blood at 


201 


202 At Our Own Door 


its close. Who supported heaven’s Missionary, 
who not only left His native shore but descended 
from a throne, laying aside His royal robes and 
divine glory, to publish the gospel of salvation to 
the heathen of earth, at the expense of His life? 
Whence came the means that ministered to His 
wants whilst He “ went about doing good,” “ heal- 
ing the sick,” “raising the dead,” “preaching the 
gospel of the Kingdom,” in the synagogues or pri- 
vate houses, along the public highways of Pales- 
tine and in populous cities, or in lonely deserts and 
on mountain heights, exhibiting an unselfish, un- 
worldly self-sacrificing and consecrated life, which 
is the type and model of all missionary effort ? 
He could not have been sustained by His family, 
for the offering of His mother at her purification 
(Lev. 12: 8 and Luke 2: 24), and the occupation 
of His father, Joseph, the carpenter (Matt. 13: 55), 
indicated that the family at Nazareth were not 
strangers to poverty. It could not have been fur- 
nished by other members of His family or kindred, 
“For neither did His brethren believe in Him” 
(John 7: 5). He had no means of His own, for 
“though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became 
poor” (Mark 6: 3 and 2 Corinthians 8: 9). It 
was necessary, by a miracle of knowledge, that He 
should apply to the fish of the sea to obtain the 
money for paying the tribute required of each Jew 
for the Temple service (Matt. 17: 24-27). 
'Alluding to His own poverty, how touchingly 
He exclaims: “ The foxes have holes, and the birds 
of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not 


Woman’s Work—Friends 203 


where to lay His head” (Matt. 8: 20, and Luke 
9: 58). The disciples could not have ministered 
unto His maintenance, for although they possessed 
a treasurer, who “had the bag and bare what was 
put therein,” yet they were but poor fishermen, 
and as they shared His manner of life and lot, must 
themselves have been sustained in the same way. 

He worked no miracles to satisfy His wants; 
the suggestion of Satan: “Command that these 
stones be made bread,” He positively refused. By 
miracles, on more than one occasion, He supplied 
many thousands with bread, but. never worked a 
miracle in His own behalf. The only light which 
can be thrown upon this inquiry, is that which 
gleams in a few seemingly casual references by the 
evangelists in their Gospels. In Luke 8: 2, 3 there 
occurs the remarkable statement that there were 
certain women which had been healed of evil spir- 
its and infirmities: Mary called Magdalene, out of 
whom went seven devils, and Johanna, the wife of 
Chusa, Herod’s steward, Susanna, and many others 
which “ministered unto Him of their substance.” 
Some of the best and most ancient manuscripts in 
the latter clause read “them” instead of “ him,” 
thus including the disciples as objects of their min- 
istrations as well as Jesus. 

Matthew, in describing the various circumstances 
and characters which surround the Cross of Christ 
at His death, mentions (Matt. 27: 55) that “many 
women were there, beholding afar off, which fol- 
lowed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto Him, 
among which was Mary Magdalene, etc.” Mark, 


204 At Our Own Door 


alluding to these women, who beheld Him cruci- 
fied, explains that they were the same “ who also, 
when He was in Galilee, followed Him and mznis- 
tered unto Him” (Mark 15: 40,41). The word in 
the Greek, translated “ ministered,” is the one from 
which is derived our English word “ Deacon.” 
From the infallible testimony of the sacred scrip- 
tures, it is evident that Jesus, the great Itinerant, 
was sustained in His work by the liberality of a 
few noble, self-sacrificing, devoted women! 

It is never said that any man ministered unto 
Him of his substance. It is true that the Magi 
brought gifts unto His manger; that Nicodemus 
brought a “mixture of myrrh and aloes” to the 
cross, and that Joseph of Arimathea furnished 
Him a sepulchre ; but these were at the beginning 
and the close of His earthly life, and were not to 
sustain Him in His work. On one occasion it is 
recorded that having refused to convert stones 
into bread for his use, “ Behold, angels came and 
ministered unto Him.” Angels and women were 
His ministering spirits! Angels and women are 
placed in the same category, by the similarity of 
their work! Oh! woman, what honor has been 
attained by you! To be classed with angels! 
Who have ministered unto the Son of God! 
“ Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached 
throughout the whole world, this, also, that she 
hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of 
her.” 

2. By whom supported, and from whence comes 
the means that send out missionaries of the Cross, 


Woman’s Work—Friends 205 


both home and foreign, in this age of the Church, 
who have caught the spirit of their Master, to 
imitate Him in preaching the Gospel to the 
heathen of every land? Through whose liberality 
comes it to pass, that every sea bears upon its 
bosom the “ ambassador for Christ”; that the sun 
shines upon no land where the Gospel is not now 
being preached ? Who sustains the home mission- 
ary on the far western plains of Texas, and amid 
the hardships of the Indian Territory ? The hand 
and heart of woman are conspicuous in this matter. 
She who sustained the first missionary out of her 
substance bears no inferior part in the work of the 
Church, which characterizes, and is the glory of 
the twentieth century. The magnitude of her 
labor cannot be estimated, but only indicated, by 
the following brief review of the operation of the 
Ladies’ Missionary Societies during the past hun- 
dred years: 

The dawn of the nineteenth century marked the 
beginning of the organized work of Ladies’ 
Societies and Missionary effort. In 1800 fourteen 
women, part of them Congregationalists and part 
Baptists, organized the “Boston Female Society 
for Missionary Purposes,” and raised $150 the 
first year. Immediately “Female Mite and Cent 
Societies” sprang up all over the state. In ten 
years auxiliaries had so multiplied that the an- 
nual income amounted to $1,360. In 100 years 
the society has raised about $175,000. 

In the Presbyterian Church, Ladies’ Societies 
began to appear about 1860, which so multiplied 


206 At Our Own Door 


that a general conference was held at Chicago in 
1870; but it was not until 1878 that the Synodical 
Committees met in the Bible House and organized 
the “Woman’s Executive Committee of Home 
Missions,” which has raised in the aggregate three 
and a half million dollars. 

Previous to 1850 nearly fifty Ladies’ Societies 
had been organized among the Baptists, raising 
each year about $12,000. In 1879 at Chicago all 
these were consolidated under the direction of a 
general society, which has raised in all $1,500,000. 

It was not until 1880 that the Congregational - 
Societies came together to form the “ Woman’s 
Home Missionary Association,” but it is estimated 
that the missionary boxes furnished to needy min- 
isters by them would amount to two and a half 
million dollars in value, and their gifts to church 
erection, etc., were at least a half million dollars ; 
whilst in their organized capacity these women 
have contributed one and a half million dollars to 
home missions. In the last twenty years the 
ladies of the Reformed Church have given $275,- 
360. The Woman’s Auxiliary of the Episcopal 
Church began in 1871 and has contributed the 
enormous sum of five millions of dollars for 
missions. 

In the Southern Church, there are Ladies’ Mis- 
sionary Societies in almost every prominent church 
and in many of the weaker, but there is no general 
organization except “ Presbyterial Unions,” con- 
fined to individual presbyteries. These contribute 
annually nearly $50,000 to foreign missions, and 


Woman’s Work—Friends 207 


$2,000 to the Assembly’s home missions, besides 
their gifts to local home missions. The aggregate 
of their gifts can only be estimated, but would 
probably amount to a million dollars. 

Adding these gifts of Ladies’ Societies together, 
we have the vast sum of fifteen millions of dollars. 
Millions of other uncounted dollars contributed by 
women for missions are known only to Him “ who 
seeth in secret and will reward openly.” 

Compare the membership of the Southern Pres- 
byterian Church and the membership of the 
“ Ladies’ Missionary Associations ” in its bounds, 
and then compare the respective contributions of 
each by the year, and some idea will be furnished 
in regard to the question, who supports the mis- 
sionaries, at home and abroad. Add to this the 
other fact, that more than half of the membership 
‘of the Church, whose contributions are compared 
with these “ Ladies’ Missionary Associations ” are 
themselves women, who contribute a large share 
of that credited to the Church; and their work 
will be even more manifest. Disband these asso- 
ciations of devoted women, and paralyze the indi- 
vidual efforts, and estop the gifts of others, much 
of which is earned by their own personal labor, 
and what disastrous results would overtake the 
cause of missions! Many laborers would be re- 
called ; many stations abandoned, many souls left 
to perish, if not the whole work, humanly speak- 
ing, involved in hopeless confusion and utter 
ruin. 

‘What a commentary on the love of woman! 


208 At Our Own Door 


What a specimen of her self-sacrificing spirit! 
What a proof of her devotion to Christ ! 

3. Women have ever been true to Christ. It. 
was no woman who denied Him. Woman never 
betrayed Him into the hands of His enemies. 
Though endowed by nature with a shrinking, 
modest, timid disposition, yet they stood by His 
cross when the disciples forsook Him and fled, who 
had boasted that they would die with Him. It is 
not mere sentiment that woman was “ last at the 
cross and first at the sepulchre.” The fact that 
the evangelist explained that these women at the 
cross were the same who ministered unto Him, 
confirms a great principle, that the parties who 
contribute to an object or cause are the parties 
to whom it is dear, and who will cling to it with 
ever-increasing devotion. That object which costs 
us thought, labor or money, is the object around 
which our affections will entwine their strongest 
tendrils. 

Woman had ministered unto Him of her sub- 
stance, therefore she stood by His cross, followed 
the body to the sepulchre (Luke 23 : 55), her loving 
hands assisting in this sad duty, prepared the 
articles for embalming (Luke 23: 56), was seen 
“sitting over against the sepulchre” (Matt. 27: 
61), first discovered His resurrection (Matt. 28: 
1-10; Mark 16: 1-8, etc.), and was consequently 
the first to whom He appeared (Mark 16: 9). 
Only one of the twelve was at the crucifixion, not 
one at the burial, nor is there any evidence on 
record, or any probability even, that any one of 


Woman’s Work—Friends 209 


them ever visited the sepulchre till after the an- 
nouncement of His resurrection. She who was so 
true to Christ, is it any wonder that she should be 
true to His cause? The more she labors for 
Christ, or contributes to His cause, the more her 
affections are stimulated ; and the more they are 
stimulated, the greater are her labors of love. . 
By the law of action and reaction, her labor and 
her love continually augment each other; her 
labor giving strength to her love, and her love 
giving fervor to her labor. 

4. Owing to causes like these, the highest com- 
mendation or eulogies ever uttered by Christ to 
the honor of any human being, were spoken by 
Him in behalf of woman. It was a woman, who, 
out of the depth of her love, anointed Him with 
the precious ointment so costly (Mark 14: 3, 4) as 
to move the indignation of a@ man, who only a 
few days afterwards sold Him to His bitterest 
enemies, betraying Him with a kiss for a sum of 
money less than one-third the cost of the oint- 
ment (Matt. 26: 14-16). Of this woman on a 
former occasion He had said, “ But one thing is 
needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part, 
that shall not be taken away from her.” Now, 
for this loving act of anointing, she is to receive 
still greater honor from Christ. From His lips 
she receives the noblest tribute that could be 
bestowed on any human being, “She hath done 
what she could” (Mark 14: 8). Such a testimonial 
may never have been deserved by any man. 
There is, at least, no record that Christ ever said 


210 At Our Own Door 


of any man, He hath done what he could. She 
erected for herself a monument more beautiful 
than marble, more lasting than adamant or brass, 
more valuable than ruby or diamond. ‘“ Where- 
soever this Gospel shall be preached throughout 
the whole world, this also that she hath done shall 
be spoken of for a memorial of her.” 

His commendation of the “poor widow ” is His 
testimony to the liberality of woman. “Jesus sat 
over against the treasury, and beheld how the peo- 
ple cast money into the treasury.” He is not in- 
different to the gifts of His people, but beholds 
and considers the proofs of their love and devo- 
tion. “And many that were rich cast in much. 
And there came a certain poor widow, and she 
threw in two mites, which make a farthing.” 
This was the smallest offering allowed to be made. 
“And Jesus called His disciples unto Him.” He 
calls their attention specially to her act: “and 
saith unto them, Verily I say unto you, that this 
poor widow hath cast more in, than all they which 
have cast into the treasury,” etc. He wezghs the 
gifts of His people, and makes ability the standard 
of estimating their value, and gives them credit 
accordingly (Mark 12: 41-44). Woman hath this 
additional honor that she made the most valuable 
contribution in the estimation of Christ ever made 
to His treasury. It was not a man that had this 
honor or praise of Christ. 

“The coats and garments, which Dorcas had 
made while she was with them,” were shown after 
her death as evidence, that she was a “ woman full 


€. ; Antal 


Woman’s Work—Friends 291 


of good works and alms deeds which she did” 
(Acts 9: 36-43). 

In concluding his Epistle to the Romans, it is 
remarkable how large a proportion of the saluta- 
tions given and commendations uttered were of 
women. Of Phoebe, Priscilla, Persis, Tryphena, 
Tryphosa, Julia, Junia, and Mary, it was variously 
said by him in approbation: “For she hath been 
a succorer of many and of myself also;” “who 
bestowed much labor on us;” “which labored 
much in the Lord,” etc. (Rom. 16). 

These references indicate how important was 
the work of women in the primitive Church. All 
these numerous and varied commendations of dif- 
ferent women, and which were not bestowed on 
men, are not simply accidental, but proofs of their 
greater devotion and superior merit, and are but 
specimens of Paul’s exhortation, “ Render there- 
fore to all their dues; tribute to whom tribute is 
due; honor to whom honor.” What a work is 
being done in the Church of the present day for 
Christ by the Dorcases, the “poor widows,” the 
Lady Huntingtons, and many others, whose worth 
is known only to Christ, and whose praises are 
spoken only by Him! How many church debts 
have been paid, how many ministers of the Gospel 
have been sustained, how many church edifices 
and chapels have been erected by them! For- 
tunate is the church that hath a Dorcas, or a pious 
“poor widow”! These are more valuable than 
the rich or noble. As they stood by His cross, so 
they will not desert His cause-at the approach of 


212 At Our Own Door 


disaster, but will rally closer around it, water it 
with their tears, uphold it by their prayers, labor 
for it with their hands and sustain it by their gifts, 
till the calamity be overpast. “Then Jesus an- 
swered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy 
faith ; be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” 

5. It isaslander perpetrated on woman, which 
charges her with being liberal at the expense of 
her husband. It is a charge which is quite easily 
refuted. That one, of whom Jesus said, “She 
hath done what she could,” was an wnmarried 
woman. She, whom Christ announced to His 
disciples as having made the most liberal contri- 
bution of all that cast into the treasury, was “a 
poor widow.” Of those that “ministered unto 
Him of their substance,” concerning whom any- 
thing definite is known, most were either wedows 
or unmarried. Not many years ago, a young 
lady of culture and wealth, to whom the world 
presented as many attractions as to any, to whom 
home and friends were as dear as to others, offered 
herself to the Church as a missionary to a foreign 
shore. Nor was this all, for many other devoted 
women have done the same; but she went at her 
own expense. ; 

In the majority of churches the most liberal con- 
tributors, those whose gifts are greatest in propor- 
tion to their ability, are the “poor widows,” and 
those whose offerings are the result of their own 
exertions. Many pastors and deacons would, 
doubtless, confirm that statement from their own 
personal observation, and would be ready to prove 


Woman’s Work—Friends 213 


it with the facts and figures. It may be, therefore, 
that in the aggregate “the widows’ mites” will 
amount toa far greater sum than the gifts of the 
rich, not only in the estimation of Christ, but also 
in actual figures. If the whole church were but 
endowed with the faith and love, and consequently 
the liberality and devotion, of many “a poor 
widow,” it would be comparatively easy to con- 
quer the world for Christ ! 

6. What is it a Christian woman cannot do? 
She may have been a heathen ; but let her heart 
be won for Christ, and henceforth her efforts in 
His behalf are untiring. It was reported in the 
missionary periodicals that not long ago a mission- 
ary in India was awakened out of sleep by a noise 
at the door. Upon inquiry he found there a 
woman, who had been converted from heathenism 
and was now connected with his church, who said 
to him, “0 sir, I cannot sleep for thinking of these 
perishing people; and I have come to ask you to 
pray with me for their conversion.” They knelt 
there and mingled their entreaties for the heathen 
around them. In a short space of time they wit- 
nessed the conversion of that people by the thou- 
sand, and the Telugus are to-day a Christian 
nation. 

No sacrifice is too great, no cross too heavy for 
her to bear, if she but recognize in it the will of 
her Master. The wife of a missionary stood upon 
the seashore in India watching the diminishing 
form of a receding vessel. On board were her 
children, being taken home to be educated. Know- 


214 At Our Own Door 


ing they would be months upon the water, and 
many years must elapse before she could see them © 
again, perhaps never, with her heart full of emo- 
tion she exclaimed, “This I do, O Christ, for Thy 
sake!” 

It may be that God has not endowed woman 
with the wisdom of man, nor has He created her 
with the strength of man, and she is, therefore, 
designated “ the weaker vessel.” But He has given 
her that which is better, He has enriched her with 
more heart and irresistible influence. Her heart 
is a match for his wisdom, and her influence can 
cope with his strength. Although called “the 
weaker vessel,” yet doubtless she far outstrips him 
in the race. Her opportunity is inferior to His. 
She is not permitted by the Master to advocate His 
cause from the pulpit. Her sphere, compared with 
that of the other sex, is limited. But when the. 
history of redemption is written, and the “ books 
are opened,” and the rewards of faithfulness and 
activity are meted out “according to their works,” 
then, perhaps, it will be revealed that if her oppor- 
tunities were not so great, yet she accomplished 
more and performed a more important part in the 
evangelization of the world than man. 

7. Woman ought to be devoted to Christ. Al- 
though the human race is under an obligation to 
Christ which no service, no tears, no zeal, no hom- 
age, no love can ever cancel, though all were com- 
bined and prolonged during the ages of eternity, 
yet woman is under peculiar obligation to Christ 
and the elevating influence of His religion. If it 


Woman’s Work—Friends 2s 


were permitted to give utterance to the expression, 
that all human beings, both men and women, are 
infinitely indebted to Christ, and that the latter class 
are, if possible, even more indebted to Him, it 
would be but saying that His religion has brought 
the same spiritual blessing to woman as to man, 
and has added even another, in elevating her from 
the most abject slavery to man to a position of in- 
fluence and a degree of refinement in some respects 
at least even superior to his. 

Christ was and ever has been her truest and best 
friend. His religion civilized man ; it emancipated 
and ennobled woman. The difference between the 
position of woman, the slave of man in every 
heathen land, and her position of honor in every 
Christian country, is a difference caused by noth- 
ing else except the religion of Christ. Neither 
civilization, education, refinement, nor any other 
system of religion, ever accomplished such a mar- 
vellous result. The learning or philosophy of a 
Socrates did not impel him to undertake the task 
of ameliorating her bondage. Neither the moral 
culture of a Seneca nor the statesmanship of a 
Cicero was of any material benefit in alleviating 
her bitter life. The religion of the most righteous 
Pharisee did not secure his friendship in her be- 
half, or induce him to become the champion of her 
rights; but, on the contrary, caused him to take 
the least public street leading to the synagogue, 
and to gather up the folds of his flowing robe, lest 
he become contaminated by accidentally touching 
a woman. The very disciples of Christ were im- 


216 At Our Own Door 


bued with the same spirit, and marvelled, not so 
much that “He talked with the woman” of Sa- 
maria, as that “He talked witha woman!” (John 
4:27, correct translation.) According to the teach- 
ing they had received, He was violating one of the 
tenets of the rabbis. 

His conversation with woman was not the only 
method by which His friendship was exhibited to- 
wards her. He did not scorn her touch like the 
self-righteous Pharisee, but addressed words of 
comfort to her who touched Him secretly with fear 
and trembling, “Daughter be of good comfort” 
(Luke 8:48); and to the woman that was a sinner, 
bathing His feet with penitential tears, whose 
touch moved the scorn and indignation of the 
Pharisee, He said kindly, “Go in Peace” (Luke 
7:50). It was this spirit of Christ once manifested 
in His person, ever afterwards manifested in His 
religion, that emancipated woman from the most 
galling and degraded bondage of man. It is His 
religion and that alone that caused the difference 
in the condition of woman among heathen and 
Christian nations. 

It is not strange, therefore, that she should be 
the friend of Jesus, His religion, His Church and 
His cause of missions. The appeal in behalf of 
evangelization may be made to woman with a 
double argument and more intense emphasis. 
One appeal may be based upon the wretched state 
of her sisters wherever the Gospel’s blessed sound 
has never been heard. She cannot resist the ap 
peal of such a peculiar nature, that which calls 


Woman’s Work—Friends 217 


upon her to redeem her sisters from a twofold 
bondage of tenfold bitterness, from bondage of 
slavery and bondage of sin, from bondage to man 
and from still more degrading and galling bondage 
to Satan, to relieve her body from the yoke of 
man and release her soul from the yoke of Satan. 
Such an argument could not fail to exert a most po- 
tent influence in arousing many a “ Ladies’ Mission- 
ary Association” to even more fervent zeal and in- 
creased activity, in securing many “a widow’s 
mite ” with Christ’s blessing upon it and its giver, 
and in stimulating many a one to win Christ’s ap- 
probation, “ She hath done what she could,” “ Well 
done, good and faithful servant.” 

But the second is a still more powerful appeal 
even than the first; one which comes alike to man 
and woman; the argument which is hoary with 
age; that which prompts the converted heathen 
to send the Gospel to other heathen: it is the 
voice of a risen Redeemer crying in the ears of 
apostles in an imperative command, thundering 
through the ages like the voice of mighty 
waters, heard by the men of this generation 
“marching” orders which the Church dare not 
disobey: “All power is given unto Me in heaven 
and in earth.” “Go ye, therefore, into all the 
world and preach the Gospel to every creature.” 
“ And lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end 
of the world.” 


XI 
SYNODICAL EVANGELIZATION 


In the year 1881 two gentlemen of Louisville, 
Kentucky, offered to duplicate any amount of 
money which might be raised by theSynod of 
Kentucky to the amount of $5,000 for the prose- 
cution of evangelistic work in that State. The 
synod accepted the offer and entered vigorously 
upon an aggressive effort. This was the begin- 
ning of a movement in the church known as “ Syn- 
odical Evangelization,” which afterwards spread 
into almost all the synods in some form; and al- 
though abandoned by some, is still in operation in at 
least one-half of the synods at present. The plans 
of the synods have not been uniform, but there has 
been a similarity of work; and the object of this 
chapter is to give some account of this aggressive 
effort in the various synods. 

1. Alphabetically, Alabama comes first. In the 
year 1892 the following action was taken by that 
synod : 

“ Resolved, That a Committee of fifteen be ap- 
pointed at this meeting of synod to be known as 
the Executive Committee of Evangelistic Labor, 
which shall be authorized to inaugurate a general 
work of evangelization within the bounds of synod. 


This Committee shall have power to employ a fi- 
218 


Synodical Evangelization 219 


nancial agent, to collect money for this purpose in 
all our churches, to engage evangelists and direct 
their movements.” 

The Committee was appointed and the agent 
elected. He secured $2,514.05 the first year. Dur- 
ing that year five evangelists were employed for 
part of the time and a total of $6,782.75 was col- 
lected in cash and subscriptions for the work ; and 
over two hundred persons received on profession 
of faith. Thesynod decided to try to raise $10,000 
the next year. In 1893 the evangelists held fifty- 
five protracted services, made 1,464 pastoral visits, 
preached 1,264 sermons, ordained fourteen elders 
and thirteen deacons, organized four new churches, 
witnessed 746 confessions, received 109 members 
on certificate and 601 on examination; and 
$8,272.52 was subscribed and collected for the 
work. A good deal of colportage work was done 
also by this Committee this year. In 1894 the 
Committee had three evangelists. During this 
year fifty meetings were held, 1,200 sermons 
preached, 1,700 visits made, 542 members received 
on examination, and ninety by certificate, and 
$5,198.10 received in cash and subscription. The 
reports for the succeeding years remain about the 
same each year until the work was abandoned in 
1898. 

The reason for discontinuing is stated in the fol- 
lowing resolution: “In view of the fact that there 
has been for several years past very little differ- 
ence in the amount given by the three presby- 
teries; and therefore each presbytery in the di- 


220 At Our Own Door 


vision of funds has received back and expended in 
its own work approximately the same amount that 
has been raised by itself (the Presbytery of Tusca- 
loosa excepted this year); and that we believe a 
larger amount can and will be raised by each pres- 
bytery for its individual work than for the work 
of the synod as a whole; and in the strong, and 
we believe almost universal, desire on the part of 
the constituents of the different presbyteries to 
prosecute their own evangelistic work; therefore, 
we recommend that the Synodical Evangelistic 
_ work be discontinued, and that the several pres- 
byteries be urged to take up this great and press- 
ing branch of our work and prosecute it to the full 
extent of their ability.” Since 1898 each presby- 
tery has carried on its own work in accordance 
with the above resolution. 

2. The Synod of Arkansas adopted its present 
plan of home mission work in 1899, so that it is 
now only five years old. The plan is very simple. 
The Synodical Committee is made up of the chair- 
men of the Presbyterial Committees, four in num- 
ber, and a member at large. ‘This Committee 
meets regularly once a year to plan its work for the 
succeeding year. A canvas is made once a year for 
the raising of funds and daying the burden of the 
work on the churches. The Presbyterial Com- 
mittees conduct their work as usual and are aided 
by the Synodical Committee and evangelists. 

About $16,000 have been expended in this work 
during the period of 1899-1903, employing nine 
evangelists, whose time aggregated two hundred 


Synodical Evangelization 221 


and four months or seventeen years evangelistic 
work foroneman. The number of members added 
on profession is 928, by letter 887, total 1,815. 
Manses have been built at eight or more points, 
valued at about $10,000. Churches have been 
erected at nine points valued at $25,000. There 
are now three evangelists at work and two more 
are wanted. There are twenty-three counties out 
of seventy-five in which there is not a Presbyterian 
Church, and twenty-one with only one. But there 
are many towns and country localities where 
churches could be organized if the money and 
men were available. Arkansas offers a fine field of 
promise for home mission work. 

3. The Synod of Florida as at present consti- 
tuted came into being December 2, 1891. In the 
year 1879 the Presbytery of St. Johns, then ex- 
tending over the whole part of the State east of 
the Suwanee River, began a good evangelistic 
work in the lower counties of the State. This 
work was continued until 1890, and did very much 
towards making possible the erection of the Synod 
of Florida in 1891. Two evangelists covered the 
whole territory, and a third did some work in two 
of the counties of middle Peninsular Florida. The 
organization of the churches of Tampa, Plant 
City, Braidentown, Clear Water, Dade City and 
Bloomingdale was the main outcome of this evan- 
gelistic effort. 

At the meeting of synod in 1886 (South Georgia 
and Florida) a Committee on evangelistic work 
was appointed, and authorized to raise the sum of 


222 At Our Own Door 


$2,500 and begin the work. Two evangelists were 
employed, who devoted their labors to the Presby- 
tery of Florida, comprising the territory west of 
the Suwanee River. The Committee failed to 
collect the needful funds, so that after a year or 
two this work had to be abandoned. Some addi- 
. tions were made to the churches already estab- 
lished, but no new places were occupied and no 
churches were organized. Beyond this effort noth- 
ing was ever done by the former Synod of South 
Georgia and Florida. 

Evangelistic work has often been discussed in 
the present Synod of Florida. The way never 
seemed open to attempt anything, however, until 
the meeting of 1902 in the City of Jacksonville. 
The synod was of the opinion that “it is now time 
that we should employ with the aid of the As- 
sembly’s Committee, an evangelist for the work in 
our State.” A special Committee, centrally lo- 
cated, was appointed, to which was entrusted the 
raising of the funds and the securing of an evan- 
gelist. This Committee was “authorized to en- 
deavor to secure by correspondence or personal 
solicitation at least $600 from individuals, $400 
from the churches of the synod and $500 from 
the Assembly’s Committee, to pay the salary 
of an evangelist for the work in our synod.” 
Nothing as yet has been accomplished in this 
direction. 

4. In the year 1890 the Synod of Georgia 
inaugurated within its bounds the work of Synod- 
ical Evangelization, or rather encouraged the effort. 


Synodical Evangelization 222 


At first it was largely voluntary work begun 
by Drs. Barnett, Strickler and Gaines, made 
possible by the individual gifts of persons and 
churches in or near Atlanta. Later the synod 
formally undertook the work by appointing an 
Executive Committee, composed of the presby- 
terial chairmen of the presbyteries and several 
laymen in Atlanta. The Committee met in De- 
cember and June each year and mapped out the 
work on a basis of $8,000, but only about $5,000 
was actually received annually. 

The work had a twofold aspect. It not only 
employed evangelists but supplemented the salaries 
of weak groups and sustained them until they be- 
came self-supporting or were abandoned as hope- 
less. For about five years the work prospered 
greatly ; then, owing to the fact that presbyteries 
began to withdraw or cooperate only partially, it 
declined till it was abandoned in 1900 and re- 
manded to each presbytery, to be carried on sepa- 
rately by presbyteries doing their own evangelistic 
work. 

During this period of evangelistic effort the 
Synod of Georgia made its greatest progress, 
growing from about 10,000 communicants to 15,- 
000, and from 151 churches to 210. An impetus 
was given to evangelism which is still felt, and 
each presbytery is prosecuting an aggressive work 
with varying degrees of success. 

5. Synodical Evangelization was Dr. Stuart 
Robinson’s last favorite scheme of aggressive 
church work. It was inaugurated by the Synod of 


224 At Our Own Door 


Kentucky October, 1881, a few days after his 
death and chiefly under his influence, and under 
the immediate inspiration of a telegram from Col. 
Bennett H. Young and R. 8. Veech, Esq., offering 
“todoubleany amount between $2,500 and $5,000, 
which may be raised by the synod for evangelistic 
labor within its bounds.” This generous offer was 
accepted with appropriate expressions of gratitude. 
An Executive Committee was elected to have 
charge of the work and instructed to apportion 
$5,000 among the churches. 

It consists at present of the Chairmen of six 
Presbyterial Committees of home missions who are 
members ex-officio and fifteen other members who 
are elected by the synod, and including three 
elders and two laymen and the chairman, whose 
duties are largely those of a secretary or superin- 
tendent, and upon whom chiefly rests the burden 
of responsibility for the success of the work. 
This Committee is the agency through which the 
presbyteries cooperate to their mutual advantage 
in the prosecution of the work within their re- 
_ spective bounds. It always meets a few days after 
the adjournment of the synod to formulate a 
schedule of operation for the year, to consider the 
needs of particular fields, to make such changes in 
the apportionments and appropriations as may seem 
proper, and to do whatever else may be necessary 
for the best interests of this cause within constitu- 
tional limits. Other meetings are held at stated 
times and on special occasions. Three presbyteries 
have always done some mission work within their 


Synodical Evangelization 225 


respective bounds in addition to the work done 
through the Synod’s Evangelistic Committee. 
This remarkable movement has been character- 
ized from its beginning (1) by the earnest advocacy 
of the foremost men of the synod, with whom it 
has ever been a favorite cause; (2) the larger gifts 
of a number of generous friends; and (3) by the 
apportionment among the churches of the amount 
called for by the synod each year, generally $10,- 
000. The value of its direct and indirect results 
has exceeded the largest expectations of its most 
enthusiastic friends. For twenty-two years there 
has been an average of forty or more laborers em- 
ployed, including synodical evangelists, presbyte- 
rial evangelists, local home missionaries, lay work- 
ers (chiefly theological students) and consecrated 
women who conduct Sabbath-schools and catechet- 
ical classes and distribute Bibles and render other 
kindred service. A total of $239,000 has been 
contributed and expended, eighty-five churches 
have been organized, seventy-five houses of wor- 
ship have been erected and paid for, 120 Sabbath- 
schools have been gathered and sustained, twenty- 
eight counties have been entered for the first time 
by our church and occupied. The numerical net 
gain of the synod has been 100 per cent. The in- 
crease in the number of candidates for the minis- 
try, the impetus given to educational and other 
church work, the spirit of esprit de corps awak- 
ened, the Christian courage enkindled, the enthu- 
siasm aroused and the influence exerted upon other 
synods and denominations, stimulating and in- 


226 At Our Own Door 


spiring them to undertake greater things for the 
Master along similar lines, exceed by far the nu- 
merical increase and territorial expansion. To ap- 
preciate more fully these results, it must be re- 
membered that “for forty years there had been no 
territorial or numerical growth” of Presbyterian- 
ism in Kentucky, until God used Dr. Robinson’s 
influence and the consecrated thousands of Colonel 
Young and Mr. Veech to move the synod of Ken- 
tucky to branch out for the first time in the his- 
tory of our Church, in the work of Synodical 
Evangelization. 

6. The Synod of Louisiana which was erected 
in November, 1901, covers the State of Louisiana 
and two counties of Mississippi. The population 
of this territory is in round numbers 1,500,000. 
Of these 6,469 are Presbyterians. This member- 
ship is divided among three presbyteries. 

Home mission work in Louisiana and Red River 
Presbyteries is done under the supervision of Pres- 
byterial Committees, which cooperate with the 
Synodical Committee, the latter securing and dis- 
bursing all funds. This Synodical Committee is 
composed of the chairmen of the Presbyterial 
Home Mission Committees, and one minister and 
one elder from the Presbyteries of Red River and 
Louisiana, and two ministers and one elder from 
New Orleans Presbytery. It is elected annually 
by the synod. The executive work of the Synod- 
ical Committee is done by a sub-committee of five, 
which meets monthly in New Orleans. 

New Orleans Presbytery supports and directs 


Synodical Evangelization 227 


independently her own work and besides contrib- 
utes a pro rata to the Synodical Committee for use 
in the other parts of the State. The Home Mission 
Committee of this presbytery has under its care, 
in addition to the work usually denominated as 
home missions, interesting missions to resident 
Italians, French, Chinese and negroes. 

The home mission work in Louisiana is en- 
tirely self-supporting. Last year this synod aided 
forty-six churches within the synod, nine in the 
Presbytery of Louisiana, nineteen in New Orleans 
Presbytery and eighteen in Red River Presbytery. 

7. The Synod of Mississippi prosecuted vigor- 
ously for some years aggressive work, but at Co- 
lumbus in 1902 the committee was dissolved and 
Synodical Evangelization abandoned. Correspond- 
ence failed to obtain the details in reference to the 
work of this synod; but its committee was consti- 
tuted very much as in other synods, and the suc- 
cess and work done differed very little from the 
others. 

8. The Synod of Missouri has been in connec- 
tion with the Assembly twenty-seven years. This 
time with reference to home missions may be 
divided into two periods of twelve years each, and 
a shorter one of three years. During the first 
twelve years, the home mission work was carried 
on by the presbyteries independently; but little 
evangelistic work was done except as pastors found 
time for it. The additions were not large and the 
net growth almost nothing, as the figures show. 
There were in 1874, sixty-eight ministers, 141 


228 At Our Own Door 


churches, and 8,000 members; and in 1886, sey- 
enty-seven ministers, 138 churches, and 8,870 © 
members, or a loss of three churches and a gain of 
nine ministers, and only 870 members in twelve 
years. There was, however, better organization, 
and a decided increase in contributions to all 
causes, both at home and abroad. 

During the next twelve years there was a great 
change both in methods and results. All the pres- 
byteries united on one general work under the 
direction of a Synodical Evangelistic Committee. 
An average of $5,000 a year was given for special 
evangelistic effort ; and from one to six evangelists 
were employed every year, beginning January, 
1886. The work of these evangelists was greatly 
blessed; and as the direct result of their labor, 
during twelve years, there were 4,441 additions on 
profession of faith, forty-three churches were orga- 
nized, including three among the negroes, and 
thirty-eight church buildings erected at a cost of 
$50,000. Nine counties hitherto unoccupied by 
either synod were entered; and the net gain to 
the synod during this period was twelve ministers, 
thirty-four churches, and 4,278 members, or an in- 
crease of fifty per cent. There was also an in- 
crease in total “ benevolences” in 1898 over those 
of 1886 of $10,961, and in total contributions of 
$17,382. Best of all the whole synod was greatly 
encouraged, and a new life was infused into every 
part and department of the church’s work. The 
past three years have witnessed the same contin- 
ued prosperity of the work. 


Synodical Evangelization 229 


9. In North Carolina, synodical evangelistic 
work has been in operation since 1889. In each of 
the eight presbyteries composing the synod there is 
a Home Mission Committee. The several chairmen 
constitute the Synodical Committee. The synod 
elects a superintendent who is ex-officio member 
of said Committee and chairman of thesame. One 
general evangelist devotes his whole time to hold- 
ing missions in the mission field. His time is 
divided among the presbyteries as the needs de- 
mand by the Synodical Committee ; and the evan- 
gelist is under the direction of the Presbyterial 
Committee in whose presbytery he labors. The 
work is supported by church collections in the 
month of June and subscriptions taken by the 
superintendent and cash offerings received by the 
general evangelist at the close of the meetings held 
by him. 

The results of the work may be judged by the 
fact, that fourteen years ago thirty-eight counties 
out of ninety-seven were without Presbyterian 
Churches, now only eleven are destitute of Presby- 
terian Churches. From one to five churches have 
been organized in the twenty-seven counties opened 
up. There have been over 10,000 professions of 
faith under the preaching of the evangelists em- 
ployed by this Committee, and an average of four 
churches organized each year. 

At present the Committee has under its super- 
vision about thirty workers, consisting of evan- 
gelists, teachers, colporteurs, etc. For all its local 
work, including presbyterial and synodical, North 


230 At Our Own Door 


Carolina raises annually $30,000, the largest 
amount of any synod in the Assembly. 

10. The Synod of South Carolina was the last 
of all to undertake synodical evangelization, ob- 
jection being raised against its constitutionality. 
Some of the presbyteries have never entered into . 
the work fully, but given only partial assistance. 
A few years ago a Synodical Committee was ap- 
pointed whose composition is made up of members 
from each of the six presbyteries, ordinarily a 
minister and an elder, but there is one exception 
to this rule. The chairman is elected by the synod ; 
and all the members for one year. Meetings of the 
Committee are held at the call of the chairman, 
who is also secretary and treasurer. 

At the meeting of synod in 1902 this committee 
was directed as far as possible to confine its work 
to .evangelistic labor strictly, and leave all susten- 
tation work tothe Presbyterial Committees. This 
has been the endeavor of the Committee during 
this year. There are four evangelists under the 
care of the Committee. Six small churches have 
been supplied by these men. Last year there were 
eight others, which have now been committed to 
presbyterial control. The State has over 40,000 
cotton mill operatives, who represent a population 
of 100,000 souls. 

Thesynod has authorized the Comme to raise 
$5,000 annually for the work; but of this sum 
only about $2,000 has been actually raised. There 
are no financial agents of the Committee. At the 
meeting of 1903 synod elected a superintendent 


Synodical Evangelization peel 


for the State and a general evangelist, looking to a 
larger-aggressive effort. 

11. The Synod of Tennessee as now consti- 
tuted only came into existence in1901. Upto that 
time it had been divided between the Synods of 
Memphis and Nashville. The present synod at its 
first meeting elected a Committee of Synodical 
Missions, but as yet has not succeeded in launch- 
ing the work. It is still in contemplation. 

12. The Synod of Texas inaugurated its synod- 
ical mission work in 1898, by adopting the follow- 
ing resolutions : 

“(q) That synod take up evangelistic work sep- 
arated from the remaining branches of home mis- 
sion work, which shall be left to the control of 
the presbyteries. 

“(6) That in order to this, synod appoint a 
Committee of eleven, four ministers and seven 
ruling elders, of which five shall be a quorum, and 
to which shall be committed the planning of this 
work. 

“(c) That this Committee be advised to em- 
ploy as soon as practicable one or more evangel- | 
ists as the funds in hand may justify, and to se- 
cure such funds the Committee is authorized to 
solicit subscriptions for this work in our churches, 
with the consent of pastor and session. 

“(d) It shall be the duty of the synodical evan- 
. gelists to solicit funds, and arouse interest in the 
work in every proper way, and hold meetings as 
the occasion may require. 

“(e) That these evangelists shall labor under 


232 At Our Own Door 


the joint direction of the Synodical Evangelistic 
Committee and the Presbyterial Committees of 
Home Mission, in whose bounds they are labor- 
ing. 

“(f) That this work shall be carried on inde- 
pendently of the Assembly’s Committee, the funds 
for this work being received and dispensed by the 
treasurer of Synod’s Evangelistic Committee. 

“(g) That this work shall not interfere with 
any home mission work of the presbyteries, now 
existing or that may hereafter be planned.” 

For the first year the Committee could secure an ~ 
evangelist for only six months, whose report shows 
that he held meetings in ten churches, preached 
201 sermons, and travelled 2,000 miles. The work 
was continued at irregular intervals during 1900, 
but no results are given. In 1901 the evangelists 
held “twenty-one meetings, extending from ten to 
fifteen days each. Members received, 342; chil- 
dren baptized and dedicated to the Lord, 169; and 
many family altars established. In several churches 
the members were increased fifty to one hundred 
per cent.; church lots were bought and paid for, 
and six to eight thousand dollars raised for church 
lots, buildings, pastors’ salaries,” ete. 

In 1902, eighteen meetings were held; in which 
“263 were received into the church ; sixty-six in- 
fants were baptized ; and money or pledges aggre- 
gating about $1,688 received for the work; 
$2,641.75 was raised to pay off balance on pastors’ 
salaries and church debts; many family altars 
were established ; and in some cases more than 


Synodical Evangelization 233 


fifty per cent. added to the church membership.” 
This is a specimen of the reports year by year; 
and the work is still continuing. 

13. The evangelistic work of the Synod of 
Virginia is conducted by a Committee which is 
elected every year. At first the Committee was 
widely scattered over the synod, each presbytery 
being represented. This plan was cumbersome 
and caused needless delays and expense in the con- 
duct of the work. The Committee is now small 
and made up mainly of ministers and elders in one 
locality, and this meets easily and with little ex- 
pense on the call of the chairman, who is also 
treasurer. 

(a) It is charged with the duty of electing the 
evangelists, of locating them for work, and of 
raising funds for their support. Only at the re- 
quest of a presbytery can the Committee send an 
evangelist into its bounds; and after assignment 
to any particular presbytery the work of the evan- 
gelist is entirely under the control of the home 
mission Committee of that presbytery, thus pre- 
serving presbyterial authority. 

(b) The evangelists are always regularly or- 
dained ministers of the Gospel, and generally they 
are men who have proven themselves to be con- 
servative, evangelistic pastors of some years’ ex- 
perience. Some are located at strategic points and 
kept there as long as it may be necessary for the 
development of the work, and the forming of self- 
sustaining charges; others are kept in a presby- 
tery from year to year according as the needs re- 


234 At Our Own Door 


quire, and others pass from one presbytery to 
another as the general work demands. They open 
up new fields, settle pastors, visit weak and vacant 
churches, infuse new life into them, help the pas- 
tors in home mission churches by protracted 
services, organize Sunday-schools and raise funds 
for the evangelistic work, for church erection, for 
debts on churches, etc. 

(c) The results have been very gratifying in 
proportion to the funds supplied and the men em- 
ployed. The following figures give only a glimpse 
of the work from 1891 to 1902: Average per year 
of men at work, six ; members added to the Presby- 
terian Church on profession, 3,706 ; members added 
to sister churches, hundreds; churches organized, 
thirty-five ; money raised by churches, $49,037.63 . 
_ by evangelists $59,637.70, by individuals $10,- 
231.28; the total amount of money raised being 
$118,906.61. 

14. The following table of comparative statistics 
exhibits the distribution of Presbyterian strength 
throughout the Assembly by synods, and reveals at 
a glance where the greatest destitution lies. Statis- 
tics of other evangelical churches furnish a painful 
exhibit of our comparative weakness, in numbers 
at least. They also show that destitution from a 
Presbyterian standpoint does not necessarily indi- 
cate religious destitution. The inability of, Presby- 
terianism to obtain a foothold in many communi- 
ties often means that it has delayed till the ground 
is thoroughly occupied by other evangelical 
churches; and it is often a waste of men and 


Synodical Evangelization 235 


means to attempt to recover lost opportunities and 
lost ground. Is it not wiser and more Christian to 
attempt to plant our principles in comparatively 
unoccupied territory, really destitute not only from 
our standpoint, but in a religious sense ? 


oe a 

a FT ls | | g a 23 

° Palos E = = 3a 

SYNOD 3 g |28) g8llss] ¢] 3] 8 | ae 
a | S |2s cs Fe Fa) 2] a] 2 | 85 

2 | Sai o%lsso 2 7 Sa 

& a |aeiaci”z i4 | a | a | & 1S 
Alabama 1,828,697 | 14089, 75, 69 9 | 11 |134424 129498, 7874) 8000 
Arkansas 1,311,564 | 5762) 170! 75) 23 | 21 | 75000) 65000 3300) 10500 
Florida 528,542 | 4347| 75) 45) 6 | 12 | 25000, 25000, 3100) 1700 
Georgia 2,216,331 | 16521| 75) 137| 39 | 45 202724/171542) 8100} 500 
Kentucky | 2,147,174 | 20241) 91| 119) 22 | 60 |200000|100000, 20000 
Louisiana | 1'381/625| 6469 112) 59 23 11 |" 41000, 30000 7837| 1000 
Mississippi | 1,551,270 | 13182, 50,75, 3 | 99662, 86134, 4001) 6000 
Missouri 3,106,665 | 12818) 227| 114] 8 i '175000/230000) 7118/ 43000 
N. Carolina | 1,893,810 | 36762) 35, 98 i | 14 /169436)141284) 5128) 4000 
8. Carolina | 1'340,316 | 20595| 28 41) 4 |101077| 77764} 7557) 4000 
Tennessee 2,020,666 | 18984; 84 99) FE 137850) 154630; 5700} 50000 
Texas 3,048,710 | 21213) 120} 5000} 40000 
Virginia 4,003,034 44149) 60 bok 32 40 1122138 17 6200, 39000] 30000 


(Virginia includes three states: Virginia, wae Virginia and Maryland.) 


A study of these figures reveals some startling 
facts. The two Carolinas lead all the synods in 
the percentage of Presbyterians to the white popu- 
lation; and yet the statistics of 1902 compared 
with 1903 show an actual decrease of the church 
in South Carolina; whilst North Carolina having 
the largest Presbyterian population of any State in 
the Assembly, with its splendid synodical work, 
made only a small net gain in membership. Mis- 
sissippi and Virginia stand next in Presbyterian 
strength, in proportion to white population; and 
yet they barely held their own during the past 
year. Alabama, Florida and Georgia stand side. 


236 At Our Own Door 


by side, each having one Presbyterian to every 
seventy-five of white population ; and yet Georgia, 
separated from South Carolina by a river only, has 
thirty-nine counties without a Presbyterian Church 
and forty-five with only one; so that practically 
eighty-four of its 187 counties are destitute of 
Presbyterianism, making it one of the weakest in 
the whole Assembly. Kentucky with its splendid 
well-organized synodical work actually lost ground 
the past year. Missouri has the appearance of 
being weakest, having only one Presbyterian to 
every 227 of white population; but if we take ac. 
count of the Northern Presbyterians, it would con- 
tain about one in every one hundred, which would 
lift it above some of the others. Texas shows only 
one in 120, and Arkansas one in 170, which makes 
them in reality the most destitute from a Presby- 
terian standpoint, and justifies the action of the 
Assembly in selecting them as its great home mis- 
sion field, discriminating in their favor in the dis- 
tribution of home mission funds. Being new terri- 
tory in the West, towards which the tide of popu- 
lation is pouring, renders them not only the needi- 
est, but at the same time the most hopeful, field 
for the planting and propagating of Presbyterian- 
ism. 

15. The threefold division of home missions 
into Local, Synodical and General, is rather un- 
fortunate, and somewhat confusing to the rank 
and file of the church. It would be far wiser, and 
more efficient work would be done, if there were 
only two departments: Local and General Assem- 


Synodical Evangelization 237 


bly’s Home Missions. This would not in the 
slightest interfere with synodical work ; but on the 
contrary, give it greater power by reason of the 
concentration of effort and forces. It seems a 
waste of energy and a needless multiplication of 
machinery to have presbyterial and synodical mis- 
sions both undertaking to occupy the same terri- 
tory. Why not unite all the local forces of the 
Synod in one great synodical evangelistic effort ? 
If the presbyteries of asynod can combine without 
friction and to their mutual advantage in partial 
evangelistic work, why not in the whole work of 
the synod? In union there is strength. 

This would enable every synod to have its super- 
intendent of missions; every presbytery would be 
represented on the Committee, and have absolute 
control of the operations within its own bounds. 
It would give tremendous potency and point to the 
meetings of synods. In all probability it would 
double the efficiency and aggressiveness of the 
Church. Might it not supply the “ Missing Link,” 
which would make our system more successful in 
its operation? In cases where the presbyteries of 
a synod decline to unite in such synodical effort, 
each could do its own work separately, and in that 
synod there could be presbyterial local home mis- 
sions exclusively. All local home missions in a 
synod would then be either presbyterial exclusively 
or synodical exclusively, as determined by them- 
selves. It would prevent friction, confusion, waste 
of forces and the multiplication of machinery. 
In either case, whether the plan of local home 


238 At Our Own Door 


missions in a synod is presbyterial or synodical, 
the Assembly’s Committee would be able to sup- 
plement the efforts of the weaker portions of the 
church. 

All parts of the work of home missions would 
be wisely articulated, and well adjusted to each 
other, and as a consequence move harmoniously - 
towards one end. Waste force, now creating fric- 
tion and retarding the progress of the whole, 
would be utilized in advancing the Kingdom of 
Christ. Presbyterianism would be no longer “a 
house divided against itself.” Its lack of aggres- 
siveness would no longer be a reproach. Every 
thoughtful mind recognizes that there is something 
lacking. Every earnest soul is longing and pray- 
ing forthe remedy. Is not the suggestion worthy 
of the thoughtful and prayerful consideration of 
our beloved Church ? 


XII 
ARGUMENT AND APPEAL 


“THE insight of genius,” said Thomas Carlyle, 
“consists in cooperation with the world’s real tend- 
ency.” The instinct, which can read the signs of 
the times in the commercial world and forecast the 
future, spells success. The trend of the age to- 
wards great railroad combinations, billion dollar 
steel trusts, etc., foreseen, enabled the keen-eyed 
financier to use the world’s current to tide him 
over the shallows in which others floundered, 
whilst it lifted him into the throne of commercial 
power—a real king, greater than the Monarch of 
Britain or the Czar of Russia. In like manner the 
Christian who shall command the greatest success 
in advancing the kingdom of God on earth must 
study to discover which way God is moving and 
“keep step with Jehovah.” It is what some one 
has termed, “conspiring with God.” 

Facts are the fingers of God in history pointing 
the direction. Facts are the voice of God in prov- 
idence, like the pillar of cloud by day and of fire 
by night, indicating the line of march. Facts are 
the steps of God in the Church, leading the way. 
The most powerful argument for home missions is 
the logic of facts. No stronger argument for 
home missions has been attempted in this volume 

239 


240 At Our Own Door 


than the presentation of facts. They speak for 
themselves and for God. This closing chapter is in- 
tended to give them a voice, that the facts them- 
selves may appeal to the Church in the interest of 
a deep, widespread, powerful revival of home mis- 
sions, like “a rushing mighty wind,” as at Pente- 
cost. 

1. World-wide evangelism in obedience to the 
“Marching Orders” of Christ demands the ac- 
centuation of home missions jist in “ the order of 
the March.” “That repentance and remission of 
sins should be preached in His name among all na- 
tions, beginning at Jerusalem.” 

“Save America to save the world,” is both good 
philosophy and true Christianity. “As goes 
America, so goes the world,” has a deeper signifi- 
cance to-day, owing to our international influence, 
than when uttered by Austin Phelps seventeen 
years ago. The greatest obstacle to foreign mis- 
sions is not pagan superstition nor heathen philos- 
ophy. Socalled “Christian ” England and Amer- 
ica, not only give the gospel to the heathen, but are 
themselves the greatest hindrance to its success. 
England sends more opium than missionaries to 
China. Christian people saw the finger of God in 
the acquisition of the Philippines by our “Chris- 
tian Nation.” “ We double freight our vessels to 
Africa and the Philippines with missionaries on 
deck and rum in the hold. What message can the 
missionary bring as he steps from the gangway, that 
is not paralyzed by the cargo rolled out on the 
wharf?” We supply Japan with Bibles and the 


Argument and Appeal 241 


results of the higher criticism, with the gospel of 
Christ and “the gospel of dirt ” as promulgated 
by Huxley and the gospel of doubt as inculcated 
by Ingersoll. Missionaries among the heathen 
dread nothing so much as our ungodly soldiers, 
merchants, tourists, etc. The Japan student who 
upon landing in San Francisco fell upon his knees 
and thanked God that he was at last upon the soil 
of “Christian” America was rudely awakened 
from his dream of ideal Christianity by the jeers 
and ill treatment of the rabble, “ certain lewd fel- 
lows of the baser sort.” 

“William Kincaid, after years of devotion to 
home and foreign missions, declares that ‘the 
planting and nurturing of churches in America is 
our first and best work for the world ; our first 
work because all other Christian activities grow 
from and depend upon this; our best work because 
in no other place on earth can we obtain so mighty a 
purchase for the elevation of mankind.’ ‘Should 
America fail,’ declares Professor Park, ‘the world 
will fail.’ And if further testimony were needed 
to mark the far-reaching influence of home mis- 
sions in America upon the fate of the nations, the 
stirring words of Professor Phelps, addressed to 
the Home Missionary Convention at Chicago in 
1881 might be added : 

“¢The evangelizing of America is the work of an 
emergency. That emergency is not paralleled by 
the spiritual conditions and prospects of any other 
country on the globe. The element of ¢2me must 
be the controlling one in a wise policy for its con- 


242 At Our Own Door 


version, and for the wse of it as an evangelizing 
power over the nations. That which is to be done 
here must be done soon. If this continent is to be 
saved for Christ, and if the immeasurable power 
of its resources and its prestige is to be insured to— 
the cause of the world’s conversion, the critical 
bulk of the work must be done now. The decisive 
blows of conquest must be struck now. For rea- 
sons of exigency equally imperative with those 
which crowded Jerusalem upon the attention of 
the Apostolic pioneers, this country stands first on 
the roll of evangelical enterprise to-day. This as 
it seems to me, is just the difference to-day be- 
tween the Oriental and the Occidental nations, as 
related to the conversion of both to Christ. The 
nations whose conversion is the most pressing ne- 
cessity of the world to-day are the Occidental na- 
tions. Those whose speedy conversion is most vital 
to the conversion of the rest, are the nations of the 
Occident. The pioneer stock of mind must be the 
Occidental stock. The pioneer races must be the 
‘western races. And of all the western races, who 
that can read skillfully the providence of God, or 
can read it at all, can hesitate in affirming that the 
signs of divine decree point to this land of ours, as 
the one which is fast gathering to itself the races 
which must take the lead in the final conflict of 
Christianity for the possession of the world. 
Ours is the elect nation for the Ages to come. 
We are the chosen people. Ours are the promises, 
promises great and sure, because the emergency is 
great. We cannot afford to wait. If we cannot, 


~ 


Argument and Appeal 243 


the world cannot afford to wait. The plans of 
God-will not wait. These plans seem to have 
brought us to one of the closing stages in this 
world’s career, in. which we can no longer drift 
with safety to our destiny. We are shut up toa 
perilous alternative. Immeasurable opportunities 
surround and overshadow us. Such, as I read it, 
is the central fact in the philosophy of American 
home missions’ ” (Leavening the Nation). 

“ The speedy evangelization of the home field rs 
the quickest way to large success in the forecgn 
field. According to present methods of propagat- 
ing the Gospel abroad the home church is the base 
of supplies. Hence, there must be enlargement 
at home or shrinkage abroad. ‘The greatest need 
of the foreign field is a revised, reconsecrated, and 
unified home church,’ said Ex-President Harrison 
in his classic address on missions before the Ecu- 
menical Missionary Conference in New York. 
The right sort of home missionary work quickens 
the energies of God’s people, unites the Church, 
and begets a world-wide missionary zeal. 

“Let us apply this principle in the concrete. 
Nine years ago the first Presbyterian church at 
Newport News, Virginia, had a membership of 
thirty-four. The pastor was then aided by the 
Home Mission Committee. In less than a year 
the church assumed self-support. Since that time 
it has sent off a colony, the Second Presbyterian 
church, with a membership of 100, and is at pres- 
ent maintaining a flourishing mission. The con- 
gregation has built three houses of worship, one 


244 At Our Own Door 


of them a beautiful building handsomely equipped 
at a cost of $31,000. The church has risen from 
the weakest of any denomination in the city to 
the strongest, and is contributing liberally to all 
the causes of beneficence, notably to foreign mis- 
sions ” (Rey. P. H. Gwinn). 

Until quite recently the church at Moultrie, Ga., 
was aided from the treasury of home missions. 
Now it supports its pastor all his time, is exceeded 
by no church in the State in proportion to mem- 
bership in gifts to home missions, supports its 
own missionary in the Congo Free State, and it is 
now supporting its own missionary in the West. 
Illustrations of this kind might be multiplied in- 
definitely and in any direction. The strong 
churches of Texas, Texarkana, Sherman, Dallas, 
etc., of home missionary origin, now have each 
its own representative in the foreign field. The 
surest and quickest method of winning Japan, 
China, India, Africa and the Isles of the sea for 
Christ is “ Beginning at Jerusalem ”—by winning 
America; for, said Matthew Arnold, “ America 
holds the future.” 

2. Presbyterianism lays the obligation of home 
missions upon every individual member of our 
Church, whose very constitution and history make 
it a missionary society for the propagation of the 
faith. The Presbyterian church in the United 
States had its origin in home missions, the colonies 
being at that time a part of the Mother Country, 
and were sustained and developed by men and 
means liberally supplied by the Mother Churches 


Argument and Appeal 245 


of Scotland and Ireland for the benefit of their 
children scattered in the forests of America. The 
very existence of the Presbyterian Church in this 
country is itself a noble monument to home mis- 
sions. The first act of its organized life in the 
meeting of the first General Assembly was to 
launch its home missionary enterprise, which has 
since reached to every section of our broad land. 
It has been characterized in all of its varied his- 
tory by the home mission spirit. Some of the 
brightest chapters in all the annals of its existence 
are the records of its home mission efforts. Its 
children yet unborn will feel a pardonable pride 
in the work of their fathers among the Indians, as 
they transmuted, by the operation of divine grace 
through the agency of home missions, thousands 
of savages into Christian people and children of 
God. Presbyterians have the honor of being the 
pioneers in New Mexico, Utah, Alaska and many 
sections of the great West. According to Secre- 
tary Thompson, nine-tenths of the Presbyterian 
churches beyond the Mississippi had their origin in 
and were sustained by home missions. The great 
Synod of Texas is a standing illustration of “a 
handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the 
mountain,” whose “ fruit shall shake like Lebanon.” 

“Presbyterian missions in particular have 
yielded and are yielding to-day rich spiritual divi- 
dends. Presbyterianism in a half century has 
organized and developed 2,000 churches beyond 
the Mississippi River. In its first century’s work 
it organized or aided 6,500 churches. Place the 


246 At Our Own Door 


average years’ service in these 6,500 churches at 
fifty years,—set the average number of souls 
saved in each one at but ten a year, and the stu- 
pendous result is 3,250,000 saved souls, as a result 
of Presbyterian home missions! If one soul is 
worth more than the whole world who can ask if 
Presbyterian missions pay, in view of 3,250,000 
souls saved in a century! Then add to this the 
value of missions along other spiritual lines,—the 
strengthening of the tempted, the comforting of 
the afflicted, the supporting of the dying, the 
transformation of homes, the redemption of com- 
munities and the uplifting of entire peoples and 
populations ” (Dr. Sherman Doyle). 

Home missions are the hope of the future. If 
the Presbyterian Church is to grow with the 
growth of this mavellously developing country ; if 
her glorious heritage of the past is to be the 
prophecy of a more glorious future; if her sceptre 
of influence among the nations is not to depart to 
some other branch of the visible church ; if she is 
to meet her obligations to the “aliens from the 
commonwealth of Israel ” in her midst—9,000,000 
negroes, 12,000,000 foreigners, 2,000,000 mountain- 
eers, 300,000 Mexicans, 300,000 Mormons, 250,000 
Indians, and 12,000,000 adults in the United States 
“ without Christ and without God in the world” ; 
—if she is to fulfill her mission amongst men and 
meet the expectations of the Master; then must 
she project her home mission work on a still 
broader basis, and gird her loins for a still more 
strenuous effort. If John Wesley recognized that 


Argument and Appeal 247 


“the world is my parish,” can the Presbyterian 
Church be content with the domain of less extent ? 
Every loyal child of the church who would see her 
come into possession of her heritage must aid in 
her home mission effort of winning America, that 
she may attain her destiny “in the regions be- 
yond.” 

3. Self-interest necessitates home missions. 
Not simply the salvation of myriads of the lost, 
but the very salvation of the church itself depends 
upon her home mission zeal. The church must 
evangelize the masses or they will paganize her 
children in the coming generation. The moun- 
taineers are an object lesson of warning, children 
of the Covenanters and of the Scotch-Irish. The 
slums of our cities are the degenerate children of 
the church largely, whose ancestors gradually 
drifted from the church, by the way of neglect, 
into the cesspool of debauchery and criminality. 
Only by evangelizing the masses can our country 
be saved from the fate of other degenerate nations. 
Dr. C. L. Thompson lifts his voice in eloquent 
warning : 

“Our Gospel is yet little more than a voice cry- 
ing in the wilderness. It has not evangelized the 
people. We punctuate our creeds with stately 
church spires in great cities, but even under their 
shadow the people die friendless and unregarded. 
By all the misery and wickedness, by all the doubt 
and despair of our congested population, we are 
not a Christian people. By the infidelity of a 
thousand new communities in which the Church is 


248 At Our Own Door 


but a feeble protest against conditions she has not 
changed—we are not a Christian people. By all 
the sodden sin and cruel crimes of mining camps, 
by all the fever of mammon, regardless of whom 
it consumes—in gay capitals, or lonely hamlets, or 
moving tents—we are not a Christian people. By 
all the menace of incoming tides of population, east 
or west, infidel or pagan—we are not a Christian 
people. 

“ And a Christian people we must become, if we 
would not add one more to the wrecks of republics 
along the path of history. To this result there is 
only one road. Christian missions must do the 
work they have so splendidly outlined. ; 
The missionary must go into the slums of the city 
and stay there till they brighten into Christian 
homes. He must camp on the trail of the advanc- 
ing line of every population till the new settle- 
ments become the abode of virtue and religion.” 

For a quarter of a century men who forecast the 
future of our country have been calling to the 
church to prepare for the great spiritual conflict, 
The Battle of Arma-Geddon, the gigantic struggle 
for this country by the forces of good and evil, in 
the battle-ground of the West. Such graphic de- 
scription as that of Dr. Thompson is enough to stir 
to fever heat the most cold blooded, careless Gallio, 
who “ cared for none of those things”: 

“When Seward said the time was coming when 
our Pacific coast would be the theatre of the 
world’s greatest events, we eastern people smiled 
in our serene and satisfied conservatism. We were 


Argument and Appeal 249 - 


the people, and wisdom was in danger of dying 
with us. But something has happened. It re- 
quires no prophet to forecast the time when the 
Pacific will be the world’s central sea. One-third 
of the human family already throngs its coasts, and 
they are getting ready for great affairs. The two 
dominant lines of the human march approach each 
other on that sea. The Anglo-Saxon is leaving the 
ancestral home. Most of them have pitched their 
tents on American shores. The old world’s camps 
are breaking up, and more are coming. They are 
moving westward, drawn by the events of Seward’s 
prophecy. From the other side another column is 
moving eastward ; the soon-to-be second race of all 
races: the Slav, slow, steady, sturdy ; moving like 
a bear, clumsily rolling over the steppes of Asia. 
He approaches the Pacific. China gasps, Japan 
doubles her artillery, and America may well 
ponder! What does it all portend? Shall these 
two great columns meet? The one armored 
with new ideas—the other heavy with the impact 
of the old. And if they meet—what then? If 
our lines bend upwards along Aleutian Islands, 
those broken piers of immemorial history, if the 
Slavic lines gather across the narrow straits, what 
then but the world’s Armageddon and the final 
conflict between liberty and tyranny, Christianity 
and superstition ? ” 

The shock of battle has not yet come. All 
parties are rallying and marshalling their forces. 
They are now engaged in maneuvring for position 
and occupying strategic points. The wise general 


250 At Our Own Door 


will not neglect to occupy the most favorable van- 
tage ground. If the church shall win in this great 
campaign in the West, she must occupy the great 
centres of population. Delay isdangerous. Some 
places can wait—others cannot! With many, 
“now is the accepted time”; “now is the day of 
salvation.” For the Presbyterian Church it is just 
the nick of time in the new country of the West. 
The struggle for Cemetery Ridge decided the fate 
of the battle of Gettysburg. The battle of Gettys- 
burg decided the Pennsylvania campaign. The 
Pennsylvania campaign decided the fate of the 
Confederacy. So in a certain sense, the struggle 
for Cemetery Ridge decided the fate of the Con- 
federacy! In the West it is now “the struggle 
for Cemetery Ridge” with us in many places. 
Many of these new towns springing up will be the 
strategic points of the future. If we lose them, 
we lose the territory ; if we lay our hand on them, 
we can hold the country for Christ and the Pres- 
byterian Church. No other such opportunity will 
come to the church in the twentieth century! J¢ 
as the crisis of her opportunity! If lost, it goes 
by forever and ever! 

The Presbyterian Church of the South is spe- 
cially interested in the battle of the West. She 
must help to win the conflict for her own salvation. 
The North is already overcrowded. The West is 
rapidly filling. The time is coming when the pub- 
lic lands of the West will be exhausted, and the 
streams of population must flow southward. What 
is to be the character of that coming tide of peo- 


Argument and Appeal 251 


ples? Will it be Christian or godless? Itisa 
question of tremendous import to the South! The 
unparalleled development of the South is attract- 
ing the attention of the world, attracting capital, 
attracting business enterprise, attracting popula- 
tion. Leaders of thought in the Church begin to 
foresee the great crisis of the South, as indicated 
in the language of Rev. P. H. Gwinn: “South- 
ward the star of Empire moves to-day,—the Em- 
pire of capital. The annual export trade of the 
South is greater by $170,000,000 than it was a dec- 
ade ago. Manufacturers follow in the wake of 
a growing foreign commerce. In 1899, New Eng- 
land increased her spindles three and a-half per 
cent., while the South increased thirty-four per cent. 
: To-day there is, perhaps, no place in the — 
world where God’s people may look for quicker and 
better returns from their investments than within 
the territory covered by the Southern General As- 
sembly. What if our membership were increased 
during the next decade to 1,000,000; and what if 
she average one dollar per member to the cause of 
foreign missions? How it would speed the Gospel 
in all lands. Ought not, such splendid results to 
be achieved at whatever cost? Will not the Al- 
mighty hold our Church responsible for as 
much ?” 

The Southern Church was financially wrecked 
by the war, and for a whole generation was en- 
gaged in building up her dismantled homes and 
broken fortunes, greatly crippling and embarrass- 
ing her missionary enterprises. Now the great 


252 At Our Own Door 


struggle with abject poverty isended. The church 
of the South is growing rich. Will she use her 
wealth for selfish indulgence and display? Or 
will she recognize her obligations to Christ? Will 
she rise to the height of the occasion? Will she 
meet the great crisis in her history ? 

4, There remains yet one more consideration, 
the greatest of appeals. The appeal of humanity, 
the claims of the destitute, the “ Macedonian cry ” 
of the dying, are exceeded in pathos and power 
only by the Cross of Christ. If“ the life and death 
of Christ are the model and type of all missionary 
effort,” there can be, and ought not to be, any 
stronger appeal to the church than the Cross. Yet 
Christian men spend so much more for cigars and 
beverages than for missions, that Bayley says, “A 
deified appetite outranks a crucified Christ ” in His 
own blood bought Church. Church of Christ, will 
ye bear longer the reproach? Will ye not tarry 
at the throne of Grace till ye be filled with the 
Spirit of Christ ? 


‘Must Jesus bear the Cross alone, 
And all the world go free? ”’ 


The Church of the Redeemer now needs, as never 
before in her history, men to make sacrifices for 
Christ, that they may be able to furnish the means 
for giving the Gospel to those “scattered abroad 
as sheep having no Shepherd.” The Church needs 
consecrated ministers who are willing to make the 
sacrifice of themselves for Christ, leaving comfort- 


Argument and Appeal 253 


able places for the sake of the unevangelized 
masses. 

In one of his campaigns, at a critical moment in 
battle, Napoleon called for a hundred men to lead 
a forlorn hope, explaining that it meant certain 
death to any who volunteered. ‘“ Now,” said he, 
“let any man who is willing to die for the emperor 
step out of ranks,” and the whole regiment leaped 
forward as one man and rang their muskets at his 
feet. If men are willing to die for a man, if men 
are willing to sacrifice life itself for an emperor, 
are there not those in the blood bought Church of 
Christ who are willing to make some great sacri- 
fice for Christ and the Church ? 

Gathered around the crucified, but now risen 
Christ, the eleven disciples had given them the 
most powerful object lesson, the most irresistible 
appeal of history : 

“And when He had thus spoken, He showed 
them His hands and His feet.” Those hands were 
pierced hands, and those feet were pierced feet! 
It was an object lesson exhibiting the cost of re- 
demption. It was an appeal for sacrifice and serv- 
ice, based upon the Cross. No wonder they went 
from the presence of those pierced hands and feet, 
and “turned the world upside down.” Would to 
God the Church could see those pierced hands and 
feet to-day, mutely, passionately, powerfully, ap- 
pealing for sacrifice and service, seemingly saying : 

“‘T gave, I gave My life for thee, 


My precious blood I shed, 
What hast thou given for Me?” 


Index 


AMERICA, World’s Last Great 
Problem, 186 

Arizona, 183 

Armageddon, 249 

Army Chaplains, 27 

Authorship Demanded, 5— 


“€ BACK TO Curist,” 78 

Bacon, Rev. Silas, quoted, 32 

“Bitter Cry of Outcast Lon- 
don,’’ quoted, 69 

Board of Home Missions Cre- 
ated, 23 

Books Consulted, 5, 6 

Broughton, Dr. L. G., Institu- 
tional Church, 84 


CANDIDATES for the Ministry, 
decrease in, 55 

Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 239 

“Central Presbyterian,” 
quoted, 65 

Chattanooga Conference, 5 

Chicago, Cosmopolitan popula- 
tion, 66 

Chicago, Degradation of, 67 


Christ, ‘‘His Hands and His 
feet,” 253 

Christian Endeavor World, The, 
quoted, 101 


Christian Herald, quoted, 66 

Christian Science craze, 187 

Christian Science, pantheism re- 
vived, 188 

Christian Science propaganda, 
188 

Church accredited, The, 109 

Church erection, 53 

Churches, earliest, 14 

City, Christ weeping over, 63 


oD congestion of, peril toself, 


city, increase in population, 64 

City, increase accounted for, 68 

City, increase multiplies wick- 
edness, 72 

City increase, remedy for, 69 

City Missions, explanation of 
failure of, 81 

City Missions, Presbyterian, 87 

City Missions, problem of, 77 

City, the peril of Commercial- 
ism, 73 

Clark, Dr. J. B., quoted, 175, 
179, 182 

Clark, Jas. Freeman, quoted, 75 

Clay, ‘Henry, quoted, 161 

Cleveland, Ex-President, quot- 
ed, 103 

Cleveland, Dr. T. P., elected 
Secretary ad interim, 37 

Were Dr. F. B., quoted, 


Craig, Dr. J. N., elected Secre- 
tary, 36 

Craig, Dr. J. N., quoted, 27 

Craig, Dr. J. N., tragic death, 
37 


DABNEY, President, quoted, 99 
Davis, Rev. E. Mace., quoted, 


97 
Davis, Richard Harding, quoted, 
174 


Domestic Missions’, Advisory 
Committee, 26 
Domestic Missions’, 
Committee, 27 


Executive 


’ Doyle, Dr. Sherman H, , quoted, 


104, 180, 191, 192, 246 


254 


Index 


Durant, Presbyterian College 
of, 54, 152 

Dutch, First Church of, in U. 
S., 13 


EDUCATION, value of Christian, 


153 
Eliot, Apostle to Indians, 145 


FOES OF THE CHURCH, Christian 
Science, 187 

Foes of Ch., Mohammedanism, 
185 

Foes of Ch., Mormonism, 189 

Foes, remedy for, Home Mis- 
sions, 200 

Foes of Ch., Theosophists, 189 

Forward Movement, result of, 
59 

France, failure of, 12 

Friends—women, 201 


GENERAL ASSEMBLY organized, 


15 

Gibbons, Mrs. Bella McCallum, 
quoted, 149 

Graybill, Rey. A. T., quoted, 
134 


Guernsey, Miss Alice, quoted, 
101 


Guerrant, Dr. 
102 

Gwinn, Rev. P. H., quoted, 24, 
33, 37, 41, 45, 199, 243, 251 


E. O., quoted, 


HARRISON, EX-PRESIDENT, 
quoted, 243 

Hoge, Dr. Moses D., quoted, 26 

Home Missions, ad Int. Com. 

— on, 39 

Home Missions, analogy of na- 
ture, 52 

Home Missions, appeal of the 
Cross for, 252 

Home Missions, at the first Gen- 
eral Assembly, 17 

Home-_Missions, basis of all ope- 
rations, 55 

Home Missions, basis of Foreign 
Missions, 55 


255 


Home Missions, Board created, 
23 

Home Missions, changes in ad- 
ministration, 38 

Home Missions, first standing 
committee on, 21 

Home Missions, hope of the fu- 
ture, 246 

Home Missions, Presbyterian- 
ism creates obligation for, 244 

Home Missions, present plan of, 
39 

Home Missions, results of, 44 

Home Missions, scope of, 50 

Home Missions, self interest 
necessitates, 247 

Home Missions, three depart- 
ments of, 236 

Home Missions, world wide 
evangelism argument for, 240 

Home Missionaries first ap- 
pointed, 18-21 

Home Missionary, First 
Monthly, 23 

Home Missionaries, 
commission for, 19 

Home Missionary funds, first 
grant of, 16 

Home Missionaries, individual 
support of, 59 


form of 


InprIAns, Aborigines of Amer- 
ica, 139 

Indians, care of, 29 

Indians, character of, 140, 149 

Indians, Dawes Commission for, 
159 

Indians, distribution of, 157 

Indians, first attempts to evan- 
gelize, 145 

Indians, Industrial Schools for, 
155 

Indians, intermarriage with, 160 

Indians, lands of, purchasing, 
161 

Indians, manner of worship, 151 

Indians, miscellaneous Missions, 
146 

Indians, peace policy, 144 


256 


Indians, policy of the Govern- 
ment, 158 

Indians, Presbyterian Missions 
among, 147, 150 

Indians, revenues of, 158 

Indians, schools for, 153 

Indians. Southern Presbyterian 
Missions among, 148 

Indian Territory, 155 

Indian Territory, Misnomer, 156 

Indian Territory, opportunity 
for Presbyterianism, 162 

Indian, treatment of, 141, 143 

Institutional Ch., 83 


KINCAID, WILLIAM, 
241 
King College, Tennessee, 105 


quoted, 


‘‘ LAND OF THE SKY,’’ The, 90 

Lawton, Oklahoma, remarkable 
growth, 178 

“Teavening the Nation,’’ 
quoted, 13, 20, 56, 86, 165, 
175, 179, 241 

Lees—McRae institute, 105 

Leyburn, Dr. John, Secretary, 
27 


Louisiana Purchase, 166 


McKEmikz, FRANCcIs, 14, 15 

‘Man, The Forgotten,’’ 91 

Mayflower Compact, 13 

McIlwaine, Dr. Richard, elected 
Secretary, 36 

ooey Dr. A. J., quoted, 


Meaklentbang declaration, 94 

Mexicans, evangelization of, in- 
directly reaching Mexico, 133 

Mexicans, immigration of, 131 

Mexicans in Texas, 51 

Mexicans, Missions inaugurated 
among, 134 

Mexicans, Missions, results, 135 

Mexicans, nominal Roman Cath- 
olics, 132 

Mexicans, present needs of, 137 

Minton, Dr. H. C., quoted, 22 


Index 


‘Minute Man on the Frontier,’’ 
quoted, 177, 180 
Missions, attitudes towards, 49 
Missions, cooperation in, 60 
Missions, departments of, 50 
Missions, the program of, 48 
Morgan, Hon. Tad. , quoted, 142 
Mormonism, conflicts with, 192 
Mormonism, , designs of, 195 
Mormonism, ecclesiastic despot- 
ism of, 193 
Mormonism, Indictment of 
Evangelical Churches against, 
194 


Mormonism invading the East, 
198 

Mormonism, Missionary in 
Switzerland, 194 

Mormonism, origin of, 190 

Mormonism, proselyting meth- 
ods, 197 

Morris, Dr. S. L., elected Secre- 
tary, 37 

Moultrie, Geo 244 

Mountaineers, eee of, 92 

Mountaineers and Catechism, 
106 

Mountaineers, Anglo-Saxons, 95 

Mountaineers, characteristics of, 
96 

Mountaineers, difficulties 
evangelizing, 108 

Mountaineers, population of, 92 

Mountaineers, school facilities 
of, 98 

Munsey’s Magazine, quoted, 178 


in 


NEGROES, care of Home Mis- 
sions, 28 

Negroes, characteristics of, 114 

Negroes, Executive Committee 
of colored evangelization, 29 

Negroes, first great need of, 122 

a first step of progress, 

121 \ 

Negroes, moral status of, 117 

Negroes, other needs of, 126 

Negroes, pastors of, 29 

Negroes, quality of labor of, 115 


Index 


ere, redeeming traits of, 


Negroes, religious life of, 120 
Negroes, second great need of, 
124 


Negroes, slavery, blessing in dis- 
guise to, 113 

Negroes, splendid opportunities 
of, 119 

Negroes, social impurity of, 118 

Negroes, Stillman Institute for, 
127 

Negroes, two classes of, 112 

New Mexico, area of, 180 

New Mexico, oldest Colony in 
U. S., 180 

New Mexico, religion of, 181 

New Mexico, religious progress 
of, 182 

New Mexico, Southern Pres, 
Church in, 183 

Newport News, Virginia, 243 


OKLAHOMA, Cherokee Strip 
opened, 175 

Oklahoma, opening of Northern 
Section, 174 

Oklahoma, origin of, 174 

Oklahoma, religious progress of, 
179 

Oklahoma, showing of Commit- 
tee on Statehood for, 179 

Oklahoma, Southern Presby- 
terian Church in, 180 

Oklahoma, Southern Section 

> opened, 178 

Opportunity, crisis of, 250 

“Ordinance of 1787,’’ 165 

“Our Country,’’ quoted, 75, 
77, 79, 167, 196 


PERSECUTION, method of propa- 
gating the Faith, 11, 12 

Phelps, Austin, quoted, 240, 241 

Phillips, Dr. A. L., elected Sec- 
retary of colored evangeliza- 
tion, 29 

Plan of Union, The, 20 


257 


Presbyterian Church, Birth of 
Southern, 24 

Presbyterian Church, Child of 
Home Missions, 16 

Presbyterian Church, costliest 
mistake of, 58 

“‘ Presbyterian Home Missions,”’ 
quoted, 147 

Presbyterian Church, sources of 
American, 11 

Presbyterianism, humble be- 
ginnings of, 16 

Presbyterianism, statistics of, 46 

Presbytery, first in the U.S., 15 


RIcE, Dr. JOHN H., quoted, 24 
Roosevelt, President, quoted, 93 


ScEPTICISM, the cure for the 
world’s, 110 

Schools, Mission, 54 

Schools, Mission, always in con- 
nection with the Church, 103 

Schools, Northern Presbyterian 
Mission, 104 

Schools, Southern Presbyterian 
Mission, 105 

Scotch-Irish element, 14, 93 

Snedecor, Dr. G., elected 
Secretary of colored evangel- 
ization, 29 

Southern Presbyterian Church, 
birth of, 24 

Spain, failure of, 12 

“Spring Resolutions,’’ famous, 
25 

Stillman Institute, 127 

Strong, Dr. Josiah, quoted, 43, 
67, 71, 163, 169, 183 

Sustentation, Executive Com- 
mittee of, 34 

Synodical Evangelization, com- 
parative statistics, 234 

Synodical Evangelization, origin 
of, 218 


Synodical Evangelization in 
Alabama, 218 
Synodical Evangelization in 
Arkansas, 220 


258 Index 
Synodical Evangelization in Thompson, Dr. Chas. L., 
Florida, 221 quoted, 22, 46, 167, 247, 248 
Synodical Evangelization in ‘‘Twentieth Century City,’’ 
Georgia, 222 quoted, 73, 75, 81 
Synodical Evangelization in 
Kentucky, 223 ‘‘ UNDER OUR FLAG,” quoted, 
Synodical Evangelization in 100, 198 
Louisiana, 226 
Synodical Evangelization in WATSON, THos. E., quoted, 94 
Mississippi, 227 West, comparative statistics of 
Synodical Evangelization in _ the, 166 
Missouri, 227 West, divided from the East, 164 
Synodical. Evangelization in West, fictitious boundaries of 
North Carolina, 229 the, 163 ‘ 
Synodical Evangelization in West, marvellous future of the, 
South Carolina, 230 : 183 F 
Synodical Evangelization in West, The South interested in 
Tennessee, 231 the, 250 
Synodical Evangelization in West, The struggle for the, 61 
Texas, 231 Western Texas, the Presbytery 
Synodical Evangelization in of, 130 
Virginia, 233 Wilson, Dr. J. Leighton, Secre- 


TEXAS, annexation of, 166 

Texas, area of, 168 

Texas, benevolences of, 172 

Texas, comparative progress of 
Presbyterian Church in, 171 

Texas, future prospects of, 173 

Texas, peculiar problems of 170, 

Texas, resources of, 169 

Texas, Synod of, argument for 
Home Missions, 245 

Thomas, Oklahoma, remarkable 
origin of, 178 


tary, 27 

Woman, Christ eulogizes, 209 

Woman, indebtedness to Christ, 
215 

Woman in the primitive church, 
211 


Woman, Missionary Societies of, 
205 

Woman Missionary Societies in 
Southern Church, 206 

Woman Sacrifices for Christ, 
213 

Woman True to Christ, 208 

Woman, work of, 201, 203 


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DATE DUE 


DEMCO 38-297 


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D00703553N 


